The Great Bishounen Abduction
by Shadow Jaganshi
Summary: Somebody is stealing all the bishies! Gah! The horror! This is a crossover of Yu Yu Hakusho, Rurouni Kenshin, Trigun, and Inuyasha.
1. In which it begins

There is a dictionary at the end of the chapter in case you become puzzled. If there's any errors in the use of my words, please tell me. Muwaha. Otherwise, shut up. Just kidding. ^_^

**CHAPTER ONE**

In Which It Begins

The day started out as a fairly normal one on Earth. Everybody was going about their various daily chores. However, there was one group of people who, unbeknownst to the rest of the world, were about to carry out a plan they'd been working on for weeks... months... maybe even years. Time had been irrelevant to them while they created their plan, because their plan had involved studying and staring at bishies for long stretches of time.

Now, these bishies had been completely unaware of the fact they were being spied on and researched. They were also completely unaware that this particular group of people were very likely their doom. In addition to this, they had no idea their most-probable doom was soon to come.

Bishies are hard to come across if you're not looking in the right place. This particular group of bishie-studying extensively-planning people knew this, and therefore the problem was solved with a simple concept that was not-so-simple to make reality.

Time travel.

You heard me. I said time travel. This group of people were mildly insane, but that fact may have helped them create their time machine. Now, these insane time travelers were quite possesive of what they believed to be theirs. And what they believed to be theirs was, in truth, not theirs.

They wanted to own the bishounens.

*dun dun dunnnnn*

Hiei woke up one day to find himself on a cold metal floor. He was confused at first, then a bit scared. He'd fallen asleep on the couch at home... And now he was in a room similar to a prison cell. Bars included. He stood up and looked around. 

The cage he was in seemed to be a small, sectioned off area of a larger room. The room was made of metal. It was very plain: circular, no furniture or decorations at all. There were two other guys in the room. Kurama and Yusuke. They weren't in cages. However, they _were_ unconscious. 

Hiei tried desperately to bend the bars on his little cage. He stopped when he realized it was completely useless, and looked at the room more closely. There were cages around the entire edge of the circular room, side by side so two of the sides were part of the cage beside it (did you get that all?). He got the distinct feeling he was in a zoo. He also noticed that this particular circular room had no doors. That disturbed him just slightly.

Hearing a curse, Hiei turned around and saw Yusuke standing up, rubbing his head. The boy looked around, spotted Kurama, looked thoroughly confused, looked around the room again, spotted Hiei, looked utterly retarded, and, having no idea what else to say, asked a very stupid question.

"Where the hell are we?"

"You expect _me_ to know?" Hiei asked. "I'm in a cage."

Yusuke shook Kurama awake and asked the same question.

"What do you mean, where are we?" Kurama asked. He sat up and looked around. "What the... Where the hell are we?!"

"YOU THINK I KNOW?!" Hiei yelled.

"All right, I'm not liking this," Yusuke said. He wandered around the room, looking at the cages. "Who are all these cages for?"

"You expect me to know?" Hiei asked again. "I want to know why the hell I'm in a cage and you two aren't."

"Where's the others? Why just us three? Where's Kuwabara and Shadow and Eclipse?" Kurama asked. "I believe we've been kidnapped."

"Hai, I assumed that much already," Hiei said dryly.

"I wanna go home," Yusuke whined. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and five more men appeared. Three of them occupied the cages beside Hiei. They were all unconscious or asleep.

"All right, this is NOT NORMAL," Yusuke yelled.

"We've come to that conclusion, Yusuke," Hiei said dryly. "I swear to God, whenever I find out who did this to me, they'd be happier if they were in the seventh circle of hell." He tried to bend the bars again and gave up when they didn't give.

Yusuke was busy looking at the five guys who'd appeared. He blinked.

"Now this is just strange," he said.

"Strange how?" Kurama asked.

"What guy would dress in a kimono in this day and age?" He was pointing to one of the two men, who was wearing a kimono with a white bottom and a purple top. Kurama shrugged.

"He would," he replied, pointing to the man and nodding. Yusuke bent down and poked the guy in the shoulder. He opened his eyes and sat up so fast Yusuke and Kurama stumbled backwards. 

Yusuke shouted. 

The other four woke up. 

They looked around. 

"What is the meaning of this?" two out of five asked in unison. They instantly looked at each other in confusion and glared and frowned. Then they looked around again. And the others looked around.

Generally, they all looked around a lot, but it seemed none of them noticed each other.

"Who are you?" Kurama asked eventually.

"Why am I in a cage?!" the man beside Hiei whined. He looked at Hiei. Then he looked the other way. "Saitou?!"

"Well, we've got one name," Hiei said dryly to himself. "I guess that's something of a start."

"Shishou?!" the kimono-wearing man exclaimed. The other un-caged man looked down at him.

"Kenshin?"

"Well there's another name," Hiei muttered.

"Why are we here?" Kenshin's master asked.

"Where is 'here'?" Kenshin asked.

"STOP ASKING QUESTIONS! WE DON'T KNOW THE ANSWERS!" Yusuke yelled. Everybody shut up and stared at him. "Now let's just get names first. I'm Yusuke."

Eventually, it was determined that the eight people in the room were Kenshin Himura, Seijuro Hiko (the 13th), Sanosuke Sagara, Saitou, Aoshi, and the three we've already introduced. 

In overall attitude, the caged guys seemed rather pissed. The other guys seemed rather pissed, but not as much so. Probably because they weren't in cages. But generally, the room was full of pissed off guys, most of them wishing bloody deaths upon whoever put them there.

"So I guess, now that we know our names, we should start trying to figure out where we are, and why we're here," Hiko said dryly.

"And who put us here," Kurama said.

"And how to murder them when we get out," Hiei added. Everybody looked at him. He blinked innocently. "What'd I do?!"

"Killing is _wrong_, de gozaru," Kenshin said. "People deserve a second chance."

A loud crackling noise filled the room. Everybody flinched and covered their ears. Suddenly, the crackling stopped and a voice replaced it. A female voice.

"Hi, boys!"

The guys stared at each other, then at the ceiling to a large speaker that seemed to be the origin of the voice.

"You probably have plenty of questions, I know, and they will be answered in due time. For now, keep in mind one fact: You are ours now, and you will never escape. Well, you might, I mean, we might set you free, but you'd have to sacrifice something in return."

"Who are you?!" Yusuke yelled. The voice giggled.

"Didn't I say your questions would be answered sooner or later? Now, just get comfortable, make friends, you know, do whatever. More will be joining you, but it might not be for a few hours," the girl said. "See you later." There was a bit of static and it cut out.

"Well what the hell was that?!" Sano snapped. "I want out of here!"

"This is degrading," Saitou muttered.

"Degrading doesn't even _begin_ to describe it!" Hiei snapped. He reached to his back. "My sword!"

At that moment, everybody noticed they were completely unarmed. 

"YOU ARE SO DEAD, YOU HEAR ME GIRL?!" Hiei screamed at the ceiling.

"You know, Hiei, that may be why you're in a cage," Kurama said suddenly. 

"Nani?!"

"Your temper."

Hiei sulked.

"Demo... That doesn't explain why _we're_ in cages," Sano said.

"Moron," Saitou said. Sano growled and lunged at the bars separating his and Saitou's cages. The man merely smirked and stood inches out of Sano's reach.

"URUSEI, BAKA!" the boy screamed.

"Calm down!!!" Kenshin said, rushing over to their cells. "Sanosuke! That's rather pointless, de gozaru! You can't get to him through the bars."

Hiei watched this in an amused sort of way, smiling slightly. Maybe it was a smirk. Sano reminded him of Kuwabara. Perhaps that was a bad thing, but then again, he didn't seem quite as stupid or weak... Maybe he was just an older, slightly smarter, a lot stronger, brown-haired, bishounen version of Kuwabara (the bishounen was added by me. Hiei would not think of guys as bishounens because he is not gay.).

"Baka deshi..." Hiko muttered.

"Why am I a moron now?!" Sano asked.

"You just are."

Sano growled.

"I think, what he means is that you're a moron for not realizing that your temper is just as bad as mine," Hiei said. "Which you just displayed by trying to ram yourself through the bars to get to him. Kosekose."

Sano glared and sulked and glared and frowned. Saitou was surprised at how Hiei seemed to understand him, but didn't show it. He just smirked. Aoshi hadn't said two words since he arrived. He'd said his first name, nothing more. Suddenly, Kurama remembered something that had nothing to do with the current situation between Sanosuke and Saitou.

"When that voice came over the intercom," he said suddenly, "the girl said, 'You are ours now, and you will never escape.' I wonder what kind of twisted things she and her comrades are planning."

"How do you know she's got comrades?" Yusuke asked.

"'You are _ours_ now,'" Kurama quoted. "She said 'ours,' so I'm assuming it's not just her."

"Oh."

"Who's to say we won't escape? All we gotta do is break down the door and make a break for it," Sano said, shrugging. 

"Did you pay no attention to the room we're in, moron? Where is the door?!" Saitou asked dryly.

"Doko?!" Sano said, as if accepting a challenge. "That's easy." He looked around. Everybody watched him silently, already knowing what he hadn't quite noticed. "Demo... Nai...?"

"No door," Hiei said shortly. "No door, no windows, nothing."

"Seikai," Saitou said. "Maybe you should think a bit before you spout out ideas. You have a bad habit of making lousy suggestions."

"Urusei..." Sano said threateningly, glaring at Saitou. The man was unaffected.

"Well it's true," he said. Sano was fuming.

"Anou... Sano-chan...?" Kenshin said, sweatdropping. "Calm down..."

"Children! Must you?!" Yusuke snapped. Sano and Saitou both turned and looked at him in a slightly startled way. Actually, it was more of a angry surprised sort of way, being as both of them were older than him and he'd just called them children. "Honestly, attempting to kill each other through metal bars is really getting us no where!"

"Hai. Good point," Kurama said. "Really, I don't think we can do anything. A room with no doors or windows, truly has no escape."

Yusuke blinked. "... What are we supposed to eat? Where are we supposed to go to the bathroom?!"

"Oh, honestly! Did you have to bring that up?!" Hiei said, disgusted. "I'd really rather not think about such things."

"Well, it's a problem we'll have to face sooner or later," Kurama said truthfully.

"Preferably later," Hiei said dryly.

"I agree with Hiei, de gozaru. I have a feeling that whoever brought us here won't let us starve to death or force us to do anything... embarassing," Kenshin said.

"Anou... Sooo... What're we gonna do now?" Sano asked.

"Nothing," Hiei said. "There's nothing we really _can_ do."

"That's reassuring."

"Why don't we try to figure out _why_ we're here," Kurama suggested.

"We've alredy attempted to do that," Hiko said. "We don't know."

"Iie! I mean... what have we got in common? Why just us? Why not... anou... Kuwabara?"

"Who's Kuwabara?" Kenshin asked.

"The _ultimate_ baka," Hiei said. "Think Sanosuke, subtract about 200 from his intelligence, divide that by twenty, and you've got the IQ of a rock. Take the square root of that, divide it by five hundred... thousand... and that's about as close as you'll get to Kuwabara."

Everybody was staring at Hiei, most of them with buggy eyes (Kenshin, Sano, Hiko...), some had sweatdrops (Kurama and Yusuke), and others looked just ever-so-slightly surprised (Saitou and Aoshi).

"Soo... He's about as smart as Kenshin?" Hiko asked finally.

"NANI?!" Kenshin said angrily.

"Hiei... I think Kuwabara might be a bit smarter than what you make him out to be..." Kurama said, grinning slightly.

"Yeah, whatever," Hiei said. 

"And I'm smarter than a ROCK!" Kenshin said, angry in a very un-Kenshin-like way. 

"The square root of a rock divided by five hundred thousand," Sano corrected, nodding. They ignored him.

"Ore shitte imasu," Hiko said. Then he added under his breath, "Baka deshi..."

"I HEARD THAT!" Kenshin snapped.

"So?!"

Kenshin was fuming. Literally. More like smouldering... Smoke was rising out of his ears... He was considering pulling a Yahiko vs. Sano imitation and biting his master's head. Everybody was staring at him, so he decided against it.

"Calm down, Kenshin-san. I think he's joking," Kurama said.

"Of course I am," Hiko said in a not-very-reassuring-or-serious way. Kenshin glared. Kurama decided to change the subject.

"We still didn't figure out why it's just us," he said. "What do we have in common?"

"You know, in order for us to find out what we have in common, you're going to have to talk, Aoshi," Hiei called. He could barely see the man, since he was three cells away (about 25 feet, maybe?) and around a bit of a curve.

"I want no part in anything any of you say or do," Aoshi said. "Unless it involves escaping."

"Well, at least we know he can talk," Hiei said dryly.

"Aoshi's not very social," Sano said quietly to Hiei. "I guess it's better that he doesn't talk at all than he talks and is a rude bastard about everything he says. Like a certain someone I happen to know."

"Moron," Saitou said in response. Sano blew up.

"Shadow? Are you okay?" Eclipse asked. (Ha! You thought you'd finally have a story without these two in it, didn't you! Well, doom upon thee for being hopeful!)

"HE'S GOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNNNNNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!" Shadow screamed. "THEY'RE ALLLLLLL GONE!!!" 

Eclipse blinked.

"Dare?"

"ALL OF THEM! THEY'RE ALL GONE! THEY JUST VANISHED! EXCEPT HIM!" Shadow pointed at Kuwabara. "WHAT CRUEL BEING WOULD DARE TO STEAL MY FRIENDS AND LEAVE ME WITH _THAT_?!"

"Anou... Shadow... If you don't mind... Could you be quieter?"

"IIE! DO I LOOK LIKE I COULD BE QUIET?! IIE! THEY JUST VANISHED! THEY WERE SLEEPING, THEN THEY WEREN'T! OH, CRUEL FATE!"

"Shadow..."

"WOE IS UPON ME, FOR I HAVE NOT SINNED, BUT KAMI-SAMA SEEMS TO THINK I HAVE!"

"Shadow...? Anou... Please... Be quiet..."

"KAMI NEEDS AN ASSISSTANT TO HELP HIM KEEP TRACK OF THE GOOD PEOPLE AND THE BAD PEOPLE! FOR I AM AN ANGEL AND WOULD NOT SIN!"

"Uh-huh. Shadow, you've lost your mind."

"Nani!? I had a mind?"

Sweatdrop.

"I guess not. Most people usually have one. I suppose... You never did. Freak."

"Demo... THEY'RE GONE!"

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY GONE?!"

"LOOK IT UP! I MEAN EXACTLY THAT! THEY ARE NO LONGER PRESENT!"

"Maybe they went for a walk."

"IIE IIE IIE!!! I was sitting here." Shaodw pointed at her sacred fluffy recliner. "They were sleeping there, there, and there." She pointed to the couch, the floor, and a chair halfway pushed under the dining room table. "And I could see all of them. Then, they turned into white light and went POOF!" She then went into another insane screaming rant.

"Shadow...?"

"WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE TAKEN BAKA-ULTIMA? WHY DID THEY HAVE TO TAKE HIEI? AND KURAMA? AND YUSUKE? I don't care so much about Yusuke, but HIEI AND KURAMA ARE GONE! NO FAIR! NO FAIR AT ALL!"

"Aa, she's lost her mind. Maybe she'll scream it all out eventually." Eclipse gave up and went into the kitchen to make herself a sandwich. A short time later (about two seconds), Shadow ran by screaming like a maniac and holding her head. She fell to the floor and rolled around like she was in great pain, still screaming.

"ITAI! DOUSHITE? DOUSHITE, DOUSHITE, DOUSHITE?! ITAI!!! ITAIIIIII!"

Eclipse, curious as to why Shadow kept saying 'itai,' peeked into the hall to see her friend pounding her head off the floor. Her eyes widened, but she didn't do anything about it, thinking something like, 'Maybe if she hits her head hard enough, she'll pass out and shut up.' Not a very friendly way to think, but hey, that's how she is. Just like Shadow.

"THEY'RE GONE GONE GONE GONE!!! _GONE, YOU HEAR ME?!_"

"Hai, I hear you, Shadow," Eclipse said dryly. "And what do you expect me to do about it?"

"FIND THEM, of course!"

"Shadow, you're delusional."

"AM NOT!"

"Did Hiei hit you with a PVC pipe?"

"Iie! Hiei isn't HERE! He vanished! Just like Poof!" Shadow clapped her hands together and then threw them up in the air like her hands had caused a mushroom-cloud explosion like an atomic bomb.

"... KUWABARA!" Eclipse yelled. The idiot popped aorund a corner.

"Huh?"

"Did the guys really vanish like this delusional girl says they did?"

Kuwabara nodded vigorously. Shadow was busy making explosion noises and acting like she was dying. Eclipse stared at Kuwabara.

"Well I guess she's not hallucinating."

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" Shadow screamed. "We're off to see the wizard, the wonderful wizard of eggs. Come with me, you brainless tin can! Or was a a brainless bale of straw? Hell, who cares?!" She then began to skip down the hallway. She stopped suddenly and curled up in a little ball with her arms over her head. "ITAI! THE EVIL TREES OF DOOM! EVIL TREES! THEY WANT TO HURT ME! MOMMY, HELP ME!"

Suddenly, Shadow jumped up and looked calm and serious. Eclipse stared.

"It's the calm before the storm," she whispered to Kuwabara.

"You mean that wasn't that storm!?" he asked.

"Iie, baka!"

Kuwabara then ran away crying to his mommy. Or sister. Whoever the hell.

"We've got to find them. People don't just vanish like that. We have to contact Koenma. Maybe he'll know what to do," Shadow said, suddenly all business. Eclipse stared, sweatdropped, and stared some more.

"What? You're looking at me like I'm nuts!" 

"Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

Eclipse fell over. Shadow stared, confused.

"What?! What'd I do?"

"OH, SHUT UP, BAKA!" Eclipse screamed. "YOU KNOW WHAT YOU DID!"

"... Oh. You mean how I was having a mental breakdown?"

"Hai, baka."

"Weeee, that was fun. I should do that more often."

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!"

"I do have a bit of a headache, though..."

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!"

"Anou..."

"NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!"

"WELL _NOW_ WHO'S HAVING A MENTAL BREAKDOWN?!"

"YOU YOU YOU YOU YOU!!!"

Shadow either groaned or sighed in an exasperated way. Either or, it was accompanied by about 20 sweatdrops. 

"Ikuso," she said, sulking away.

"Doko?"

"TO KOENMA, BAKA!"

"Aa!"

"Baka."

"You're so cruel."

"Arigatou."

Eclipse groaned and followed Shadow.

Meanwhile...

Kurama. "."

Hiko. ".."

Kurama. "..."

Hiko. "...."

Kurama. "....."

Hiko. "......"

Kurama. "......."

Hiko. "........"

Kurama. "........."

Hiko. *glare* "............................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................................................................... ............................................................."

Kurama. O_O *waves little white flag of surrender*

Aoshi. *glares*

Yusuke. "ZzZzZzZz."

Saitou. *frown*

Hiei. "Hn."

Sanosuke. "Feh."

Kenshin. "Oro?"

... Not much going on there. Competition of the dots between Hiko and Kurama... Hiko got ticked and cheated. Aoshi is glaring at the dot competitors, thinking along the lines of, 'Die die die die die die die die die die.' (And Pacman is staring at the dots hungrily. 'Mmmmm... dots,' he says.) Yusuke is sleeping. Saitou is frowning, as usual. He always frowns. Unless he's smirking at another's misfortune. Hiei says 'Hn' for lack of real words meaning something similar but only using two letters. Sanosuke says 'Feh' since 'Hn' is taken. Kenshin says 'Oro' because everybody else has their own little pet words, so he has to fit in.

And so concludes this chapter.

You heard me.

It's concluded.

Buwahahahaha, you know? Now review before you become non-reviewer-flavored dots. Pacman is hungry! Maybe I could add 8 gallons of green food coloring and make him think they're apple flavoured. Certainly more appealing... Anyway... Muwahahahaha.

Oh, and when you review, tell me some other anime bishies I could add. Muwahahahaha. Poor guys.

Oh, and in case you're confused, I shall posteth thee dik-shon-airy. Fore thee werds thet arnt en inglish, ne? Ay kant spel, ne?

**bishie- short for bishounen**

**bishounen- "Pretty boy." Generally, it's used when talking about any guys that are attractive. Cute, cool, hot, whatever you find attractive in a guy. *wink***

**hai- Yes**

**shishou-** master

**de gozaru- "that it is" "that he is" etc... You know, just... what Kenshin says.**

**nani- What**

**demo- but...******

**urusei- As far as I know, this means "Shut up"******

**baka- Stupid, idiot, fool... anything like that.**

**deshi- student, apprentice... etc.**

**kosekose- fussy, make a big deal out of nothing**

**doko- where**

**nai- there isn't, doesn't have**

**seikai- correct, right**

**anou- "um..." "er..." (seriously, that's what it means!)**

**-chan: Usually used with somebody younger than the speaker, or perhaps of equal or lower status******

**iie- no**

**Ore shitte imasu- "I know" (I'm fairly sure that's what it means...)**

**-san: Like English "Mr." or "Mrs."**

**dare- who?**

**Kami-sama: God**

**Aa- Oh!**

**itai- Ow! (or similar exclamation of pain.)******

**doushite- Why?**

**ikuso- Let's go**

**arigatou- Thank you**

**ne- right?**

Wow, that's quite a few. I actually think I used a bit too many. Like 'anou' is a bit unnecessary, ne? Because it's like 'um,' and 'um' is two letters while 'anou' is four. So really it's pointless, but I DON'T CARE! Yay! Anyway, review or I will force upon you the wrath of the dancing pig of doom! Muwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!! And give me BISHIES! Muwaha! 

**Oi, the disclaimer: Me no own no anime or bishies though me wish me did, you can't always get what you want. *suddenly bursts into song* Oh, you can't always get what you waaaaaaaaaaant, you can't always get-- I don't own that, either. That song. It's evil and I don't want to own it. It belongs to whoever the hell wrote it.**


	2. In which stuff happens

The original title for this chapter was: I believe this would be called 'chapter two', for it is the second chapter and therefore is chapter two. I could be wrong, however, and I suddenly want to use the word thereof, but don't know how. That was a bit long and pointless, so I changed it.

**CHAPTER TWO**

In Which Stuff Happens

Hiei was in a pissed off mood.

He sulked. 

He looked at Saitou.

Saitou looked pissed off.

He was sulking.

They were both pissed off.

They were both sulking.

They were both in cages.

And it sucked.

Hiei had the sudden urge to scream at the top of his lungs while murdering innocent bystanders. He wanted to rip out somebody's heart and ram it down their throat so fast they were still alive to feel it. He wondered if Saitou felt the same way. He wondered if anyone felt the same way. Aoshi probably did.

Sanosuke was bored.

I take that back.

Sanosuke was asleep.

He was having a dream.

He dreamt that he actually managed to land a punch on Saitou, and when he did so, the police officer promptly ran off crying. It was a good dream.

Then he woke up. He saw Saitou, and realized his dream would never be real.

He became miserable.

This was the general mood in the room. Pissed off, violent, or miserable. He wasn't sure how Kurama and Yusuke were feeling, because they were asleep. He couldn't tell how Kenshin and his master were feeling either, since they were across the room having a nice lil' conversation.

It was night. 

Sano had gathered that much when a girl came over the intercom and said, "Since it is now dark outside, I will dim the lights in your room. Good night."

She had sounded pissed off.

Sano was sick of feeling pissed off. He wanted to feel happy.

He tried to feel happy.

Then he realized how genuinely hard it is to feel happy when you're thoroughly miserable. He wanted to kick something. He kicked the wall. It didn't help. It especially didn't help when he let out a curse from the pain and Saitou called him a moron for kicking the wall. Then he was twice as pissed as he had been when the whole deal started.

He sulked.

Eventually he fell asleep and had a miserable dream about insane girls locking him in a tiny room and torturing him (not physically but mentally) while Saitou stood off to one side laughing insanely. It was a lousy dream and he wanted it to die. 

Meanwhile...

Shadow and Eclipse had eventually reached Koenma. Shadow had run straight at his office door, hoping it was automatic, but realizing a bit late that it wasn't, and had slammed into it. Koenma opened the door and looked down at her.

"Hello, Shadow. What brings you here... alone?"

"GONE!" she bawled.

"... Is that so?" he said, sweatdropping. Eclipse finally caught up to her.

"Hello Koenma."

"Koenma? Where?" Shadow said. She looked up. "Oi, Kenma!"

"Kenma?" Koenma said, puzzled.

"Kenma!"

"Aye."

"They're gone," Shadow said randomly.

"Who?"

"Hiei, Yusuke, and Kurama."

"What do you mean by gone?"

"Exactly that. Gone. No longer around. Poof. Poosh. Poom. Pow. Patooie. Pttttttttthhhhhhhhhtttttttt!"

"Oh? And where did they go?"

"You mean you don't know? Cause I don't know either. They just vanished in a flash of white light. It was like this: Here's the flash of white light. Here's them. When the white light vanished, they went with it," Shadow explained.

"Oh. I think you should come into my office."

"You have an office?! Wow! Can I see it?"

"Anou... Shadow, I think you need to calm down," Koenma said. 

"Calm? I'm calm. I'm perfectly calm. Don't I look calm? I'm calm. Why wouldn't I be calm? I'm calm!"

Shadow was suddenly hit in the head with a rather large and heavy book titled 'Secrets of the Universe for Dummies.' She fell over and Koenma dragged her into his office with Eclipse trailing behind, sweatdrops galore.

"Okay, now explain to me exactly what you're trying to say," Koenma said, propping Shadow up in a chair. She had swirly eyes, her tongue was hanging out of her mouth, and she was drooling all over herself.

"I think you knocked her remaining three brain cells onto the floor. You'd better look for them," Eclipse said. Koenma quirked an eyebrow.

"How about I try to create some?" he said. He pulled a crowbar out of his pocket and put it over his head, ready to bring it down and dent in Shadow's head.

"BLOODY MURDER!!!" Shadow screamed suddenly. She jumped up and ended up halfway across the office. She looked at her shirt and made a disgusted face. Pointing at it, she said, "WHO DID THIS?"

"That would have been you, Shadow," Koenma said dryly. "Now, explain--"

"I DID NOT SUCH THING! IT'S UNSANITARY!"

"YOU KNOW WHAT? FINE!" Koenma yelled. He floated above her and dumped a five-gallon bucket of water on her head. "CLEAN NOW?"

Shadow stood there sputtering and shivering.

"Mop that up!" Koenma ordered.

"Me?!"

"Hai. NOW!"

"Screw that!" Shadow took one step and slipped in the water. She ended up on her back with her wet bangs hanging over her eyes and stars floating around her head. Eclipse groaned. Koenma sighed. He walked over and brushed the stars out of the air, shaking Shadow to her senses. She reached up and formed spikes from her wet hair. She grinned dazedly.

"I am Pokey, hear me roar."

"Pokey?"

"Roar."

"I'm terrified, Pokey. Now get up."

"Roar."

"SHADOW, GET THE HELL UP OFF THE FLOOR BEFORE I BEAT YOU TO DEATH WITH A RUBBER CHICKEN!!!" Eclipse screamed. "HONESTLY, YOU'RE FLIPPIN' OUT ABOUT THEM BEING GONE AND YOU'RE DOING NOTHING ABOUT IT!"

"Hai, seikai. Of course," Shadow said, standing up. She stood there, dripping wet for a second, before she grinned. "Roar."

Facefault, sweatdrop, anime fall down. Koenma got up and started cursing at her in languages she didn't know existed. She started taking notes. 

"OKAY, OKAY, SHUT UP!" Shadow screamed eventually, after several pages in her notebook were filled up. "Now, what is it you wanted me to tell you?" She put the notebook in her pocket, and somehow, magically, it actually fit, somehow, in some strange way. She sat down on the wet floor and looked at Koenma expectantly.

"What were you saying earlier about people vanishing?"

Shadow paused. "My underwear are wet."

"SHADOW JAGANSHI, YOU HAD BETTER START BEING NORMAL PRETTY SOON OR--" Koenma screamed, but he was interrupted. Eclipse kicked Shadow straight in the side of the head, sending her flying into the wall. They had to peel her off.

"Okay, fine, okay, FINE! I'll be normal. I'll concentrate," she said. "But first..." She grabbed Koenma and Eclipse and slammed their heads together.

"ITAI!!!" they yelled.

"THAT'S what you get for abusing me." Shadow then commenced to explain what she had said to Eclipse about vanishing people, in greatly detailed detail, while Koenma stared at her. When she was done, he sighed.

"It must be some powerful demon or something... With the ability to transport, and---"

"Does that ability even exist?"

"Yes it does. Don't interrupt me."

"Ah. Gomen."

"Now, this must have been done by some powerful demon with the ability to transport, and he sensed they were the strongest in your house and took them. Poof, just like that. I'm sure they can take care of themselves. If they aren't back by the end of the week, come back," Koenma said. 

"... Your great worry is quite evident," Shadow said sarcastically.

"Yes, isn't it?" Eclipse added.

"Get out!" Koenma snapped.

"Hai, Koenma-sama!" they said in unison, saluting. They turned and ran out. Shadow slipped and fell in the water, drenching her starting-to-dry clothes.

And voila, it was morning...

"GOOD MORNING, BOYS!" a voice exploded over the intercom. If they hadn't already woken up, that woke them up quite effectively. "Sleep well?!"

There were several angry groans and growls.

"We'll be having some new arrivals today, so be ready. Right now, we're gonna take care of you," the girl said.

"Take care of us?" Hiei repeated. The next thing he knew, he'd been transported into a small room. A girl stood in front of him.

"Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!" she squealed, jumping up and down. She reached towards Hiei. "Hiei Jaganshi... I never thought I'd ever, EVER get this close!"

"Don't touch me," he snapped, as she was obviously aiming to.

"AH! He talked to me!" She passed out right then and there. Hiei snorted.

"Fanatic," he muttered.

Meanwhile, the rest of the guys were experiencing something almost exactly the same. Except not all the girls passed out.

Anyway, so the reason they'd been transported into the little rooms was so they could have their needs tended to (the problems Yusuke brought up in the last chapter), and also so they could meet their captors... fanatics... whatever you want to call the lunatic girls who brought them to the place.

After all that, they were transported back to the room they'd been in, back into the cells or not, wherever they'd been before. They were all a bit startled. Some showed it more than others.

"HEY, WHAT'S THE BIG IDEA? WHY AM I BACK HERE?" Sano screamed, shaking his fist at the intercom speaker.

"Moron."

"SHUTUP, SAITOU!" He lunged at Saitou through the bars.

"CHILDREN!" Yusuke screamed. They looked at him. "Geez!"

"It seems we've been kidnapped by fanatics," Kurama said.

"I gathered that much when I was transported into a room with a girl who passed out when I told her not to touch me," Hiei said dryly.

"Fanatics? You mean there's actually somebody who likes _Saitou?" Sano said in disbelief. "Seriously?"_

"Unfortunately," Saitou said coldly.

"Unfortunately?!" Sano repeated. "You mean you actually look down on people who like you?"

"Not like there's many of them," Hiei said. Saitou narrowed his eyes.

"Most people aren't too fond of police officers," he said.

"Police officers who used to be murderous samurai and still take the occasional job of assassinating somebody, you mean?" Hiko added.

"Isn't that against some moral code as a police officer or something?" Hiei asked. "Breaking the law and enforcing it at the same time? Wouldn't you have to arrest yourself?"

"Not if nobody found out," Saitou said.

"... Ah. You're not really the honor code type, are you?"

Saitou just quirked an eyebrow.

"Didn't think so."

"So are we just going to PUT UP WITH being the prisoners of INSANE FANATIC GIRLS or are we going to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!?" Yusuke yelled, breaking up the 'friendly' conversation. They all turned and looked at him expectantly.

"Well, if you've got some plan of how to get out of a room with no doors, feel free to suggest it," Aoshi said. Everybody looked at him.

"Actually... I was hoping one of you guys had thought of something," Yusuke admitted.

"Yusuke, we've been back for about five minutes. Who can form a plan elaborate enough to get us out of here in that amount of time? Even I can't do that!" Kurama said. Yusuke blinked.

"Some genius you are!"

"Well, they did say we could buy our way out of here," Kenshin said. "But I have a feeling whatever they want us to sacrifice is a bit more than I'd like to give."

"We could just slaughter them all and try to find a way out on our own," Hiei said. "But that would be a little bit hard, being as we have no idea where we are. But once we figure out how to escape, I'm slaughtering them all."

"Iie!!!" Kenshin whined. "Iie, iie, iie!!!"

"Oh, God, Himura! Do you honestly still think they need a second chance?!"

"Hai. Everybody can change," Kenshin said. Hiei groaned.

"You need help."

"You don't understand Kenshin's past! He's got a really good reason for how he is!" Sanosuke snapped. "I suggest you keep your opinions to yourself when they're as rude as that, shrimp!"

"God, I can't get away from Kuwabara even when he isn't around!" Hiei complained. Everybody looked confused except Kurama and Yusuke, who realized Sano we being exactly like the baka human.

"Wait... Kuwabara was the one you called the ultimate baka, wasn't he?!"

"Hai. You're acting just like him," Hiei said. Sano growled. He lunged at Hiei through the bars. Hiei pulled the same evil trick Saitou had. He stood just past the reach of Sano's fingers and laughed.

"Grrrr! And you're acting just like _him_!" Sano said accusingly, pointing at Saitou. Hiei smirked.

"It's better to be like a lunatic police officer than an oaf with the intelligence of a rock."

"_Lunatic?" Saitou repeated. He'd never really thought of himself as a lunatic. Evil, yes. Cruel, yes. Sadistic, maybe. Lunatic? ...Nah._

"Yes, lunatic! You're a cop who takes part time jobs as an assassin!"

"It's not really a habit, actually," Saitou said. "My assignment was the Battousai. I wanted to settle it with him by killing him. As you can see, I didn't."

"Battousai?"

"Hai... I suppose you only know him as Kenshin Himura."

"_Battousai?" Hiei said in disbelief, looking at the young man in the purple kimono, who, at the moment, was looking rather clueless and innocent. "That guy? You're kidding!"_

"Iie. I'm serious."

Hiei looked at Kenshin, inspecting him. After a minute, he shrugged.

"I'd have to fight him to judge for myself. But with that little 'no killing' deal, he'd never beat me."

"You think so highly of yourself, boy," Hiko said. "You need some lessons in humility."

"Whatever."

"Well, with this attitude, none of us will make it out of here, because we need to work together as a TEAM and 'TEAM' does not have 'I' in it," Yusuke said. "We're already going at each other's throats!"

"But there _is_ a 'me' in team. Anyway, where have you been, Yusuke? These two have been attempting to murder each other since they got here!" Hiei said, pointing at Sano and Saitou.

"Well they know each other! I mean that you and Hiko-san are arguing, and you and Sanosuke have been arguing, and I'M usually the smart-mouth, and I'm not being a smart-mouth!" Yusuke explained.

"Well I'm safe, so I can be as smart-mouthed as I want to, because nobody can get to me," Hiei said. "Anyway, it's true that we can't do anything until we know a bit more about our situation. At this point, all we know is that we've been kidnapped by fanatic girls with transporters."

"... _There's a 'me' in team!?_ Damn, Hiei, you've been hanging around Shadow too long!" Yusuke said, suddenly realizing what the demon had said ages ago.

"Hai... Anou... I've lived with her for almost two years."

"Really? It's been almost two years?"

"Hai. She was fourteen, later she turned fifteen, and now she's past fifteen and a half. Well, that's according to her. I don't know her real birthday," Hiei said. Sano was staring at him.

"You live with a fifteen-year-old?!"

"Something wrong with that, baka?"

"AHHHH! DON'T CALL ME BAKA!!! I SWEAR TO GOD, YOU'RE JUST AS BAD AS SAITOU, IF NOT WORSE!!!"

Hiei laughed. Saitou smirked.

"Well, it seems Hiei-san has actually managed to get on Saitou's good side," Kenshin said.

"Saitou has a good side?!" Sano said in disbelief. "That's an interesting concept."

"He'd have to have a good side. He's married, de gozaru," Kenshin said. Then he instantly slapped his hand over his mouth. "Gomen, Saitou-sama!!!"

"YOU'RE MARRIED?!" Sano yelled. He looked at the police officer skeptically. "Are you _sure_ you're married? Because in order to be married, you should be in love, and to be in love, you have to have a heart. I can't imagine any woman being able to put up with you. But she must be some woman to be able to find _your heart."_

Saitou glared at Kenshin. He glared at Sano. Tiny wispy trails of steam drifted out of his ears. He wanted a cigarette. Of course, the little fanatic girls hadn't been so kind as to provide him with any, and he was suffering a bit of a major withdrawal headache. Sanosuke wasn't making it much better. Hoping to shut him up, he simply said, "Moron," and sat down with his back against the wall and his eyes closed.

"Is that all you've got to say?! You're not going to tell us about your lovely wife?" Sano taunted. Now that he had something to use against Saitou, he'd use it. So inside the evil, murderous, insulting, son-of-a-bitch outside, Hajime Saitou truly _did_ have a heart. Amazing.

Getting no response from Saitou, Sanosuke was slightly annoyed. He had something to use against him, but it didn't even piss him off! And if it did, the little piece of crap didn't show it. Kenshin, on the other hand, was quite happy he hadn't gotten anything past a glare, because he had tried rather hard not to let that little bit of information slip to Sanosuke, and he had a feeling Saitou wasn't too happy with him at that particular moment.

"Soooo... What's she like?" Sano asked after a couple minutes of silence. Saitou clenched his teeth. "She tall? Short? Skinny? Not-so-skinny? What color are her eyes? I bet she's got blue eyes. And black hair... and... she's tall... and--" The next thing he knew, he was grabbed by the front of his shirt and pulled up against the bars.

"Why don't you shut up, moron, before I rip out your heart and shove it up your nose?!" Saitou hissed. He threw Sano backwards, then went and sat back down like nothing had happened.

_'Ha!'_ Hiei thought triumphantly. _'So he IS having insane urges to rip out peoples' hearts!'_

Sano stood there looking a bit angry and relieved at the same time, probably a bit happy Saitou hadn't started trying to pull him _through the bars. Because, being as the bars were less than 6 inches apart, that wouldn't have worked very well and would have been kind of painful._

Meanwhile, back at the bat cave... er... the... house...

"He just expects us to wait a full week for them? I watched them vanished from my own living room! Does he not know the kind of stress I'm under?" Shadow complained. Eclipse grinned.

"Nothing a good blow to the head wouldn't solve," she said, resting a baseball bat on her shoulder. Shadow quirked an eyebrow.

"You know, there's drugs that have the same effect, and they're a bit less painful," she said nervously.

"You're actually considering taking sleeping pills?"

"Iie. I'm considering going to look for them."

"Baka! If they really vanished in a flash of white light, explain to me how you'll find any trace of anything to help you find them!"

"Uhhhhhhhhhh... Good point. I think I should be locked in my room with a bottle of sleeping pills and a gallon of water. Do you think a bottle would keep me out for a week?"

"... If you take them the RIGHT WAY, probably. If you take them the WRONG WAY, aka overdose, you will be out for a lot longer than that, I'd say. Like... eternity?"

"Bwahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!"

"Aye... What was that for?"

"Dunno."

"Ugh. Baka."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Read and Review. Either that or forget the review and die. I'll tell the lunatic girls that you want to steal their bishies. 

Oh, I was gonna add a few new characters at the end of the chapter, but I just remembered that and I'm already done, so I'll just add them next chapter. Maybe. I only got like… one suggestion, and that was already some people I was considering. 


	3. In which Sano gets punched

I feel so bad. People were suggesting all these bishies I'd never heard of! Sorry peoples, but I only added five. I don't think I'll add any more, cuz I've added bishies from all the shows I know enough about to get their attitudes right. I'm kinda deprived of anime. I only see what they show on Cartoon Network. *kicks something and it runs away screaming*

Oh, by the way, I'm attempting to take over the world with winged paperclips and giant hamsters with 6-inch fangs and a lust for human flesh. If you see either of these, please don't do anything to them, they'll leave you alone if you leave them alone. ^_^ (Don't ask.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~****

**CHAPTER THREE**

In which more people arrive and Sano gets punched****

It was still the day after they'd arrived. The guys were all moping or something similar, when behold, the bright light flashed, and POW! The room suddenly had five more occupants, two of which ended up in cages. One of these two was wearing all red and had long white hair and... dog ears... The other one was wearing mostly white, had some strange furry thing over one shoulder, a large metal thingy with spikes on the other shoulder, had red streaks on his face, a purple crescent moon on his forehead, and pointy ears.

The three who weren't in cages were more human. One was wearing purplish-blue robes and had his ears pierced with little gold rings through them. The second was wearing a long red coat and had spikey blonde hair. The other one was probably the most normal, as far as clothing and looks. He wore a dark suit, dark sunglasses, and had short black hair.

"Just what we need," Saitou muttered. "_More_ bakas."

"Who's to say they're idiots, Saitou-san?" Kurama said. "They could be very intelligent."

"Unlikely."

"Why don't you wake 'em up and ask?" Sanosuke suggested.

"Fine," Yusuke replied. He knelt beside the young man in the red coat. "Hey, you! Wake up!" he ordered, shaking him. The man opened his eyes and sat up, looking around.

"Huh? Who are you guys? Where am I?"

Everybody let out a collective sigh/groan. Those questions had to be the most annoying questions in the world. 

Kurama woke up the man in the dark suit. He sat up, looked around, spotted the blonde-haired man, and yelled, "What're you doin' here, Needlenoggin? Wait. Where is here?"

Last, they woke up the man in the robes. He went and woke up one of the two caged guys, the one in red. That one looked around and spotted the other white-haired man in teh cage beside him. He looked angry and scared at the same time.

"Sesshoumaru!"

With that, the other man woke up. He looked around. He glared.

"What is this place?"

Well at least it wasn't 'Where am I?'

"Who are you people?" the blonde man asked.

Well, they got through introductions. Vash, Wolfwood, Miroku, Inuyasha, and Sesshoumaru were the new captives. Then, eventually, they managed to explain to these five what was going on... as far as they knew.

"We've been kidnapped?! What the hell do they think they're gonna get from kidnapping us?" Wolfwood asked. He reached into first one pocket, then another, then patted his chest and looked around, starting to look frantic.

"Something wrong?" Yusuke asked.

"They stole my cigarettes!"

"You'll just have to deal with the headaches," Saitou drawled. "I am."

"You smoke?" Hiei asked. 

"_That's what was different about you!" Sano said triumphantly. "For once you haven't got a flippin' cigarette hangin' out of your mouth!"_

"I don't care what they think they're gonna get, I know what they're gonna get! I'm gonna give them a damn broken neck, that's what!" Inuyasha snapped.

"Hey! Somebody agrees with me!" Hiei said. Nobody paid attention. Inuyasha was getting a lecture from both Vash and Kenshin about, 'Killing is wrong!' 

He yelled at them to shut up. They listened. A voice came over the intercom.

"Now that you're all here, we'll answer your questions. Let's put you in a bit friendlier environment, okay?"

Before they realized it, the guys were in a large room with some chairs and desks. It resembled a school room, except it wasn't very well lit. In the front of the room there was a stage, a large screen (like the type you'd use for slide shows), a long table, and a podium. Twelve girls sat at the table and one stood at the podium.

"Hi guys! Let's have the first question, please," the girl at the podium said.

"Do you want to die?" Hiei asked.

One of the girls swooned and passed out, knocking her chair over backwards. The guys glanced at her, but the other girls barely seemed to notice.

"That's a silly question. Does anybody have a SERIOUS question?"

"What is it exactly that you want from us?" Kenshin asked.

"We are on a quest to find the ultimate bishounen. You boys have been chosen as contestants."

"Contestants? You talk about it like it's a game show," Hiei said quietly.

"Why are you ramming us in little cages like animals?" Sanosuke asked. "It's degrading!"

"Don't use my word, ahou. You probably don't even know what it means," Saitou said under his breath.

"I'm warning you, old man..." Sano growled.

"Ahem! We put you in those cages because of your volitile nature," the girl answered.

"Yes, moron, didn't we already decide that?" Saitou said.

"SHUT UP, SAITOU!"

"Like that. Now... Next question!"

"Why have you robbed me of my cigarettes?" Wolfwood whined in an overly dramatic tone.

"Why have you disarmed us?"

"Because if we hadn't disarmed you, I have a feeling Sanosuke-san would be dead right now."

"Ha! I'm popular! All you people got your weapons taken because of ME!" Sano bragged. Hiei leaned toward him.

"That's not a good thing," he whispered.

"It's not?"

"Huh-uh."

"Shit."

"Next question!" 

"Who are you people, and where exactly is this place?" Kurama asked.

"Good questions!" the girl said. She turned and hissed to the girls at the table, "I _told you_ Kurama-dono was a genius!"

"Kurama-_dono?!" Yusuke said, his jaw dropping. "Looks like we found your fanatic, Kurama."_

"Hai..."

"To answer your questions, dear, we are just a bunch of teenage girls who are more intelligent than to just swoon over what we could never have. We decided that swooning was pointless unless you were swooning over the REAL THING. We started planning, and PRESTO! Bishies are OURS NOW!" The girl laughed insanely. Hiei was reminded of Shadow.

"What about the second question?" Kurama reminded.

"This place is in Tokyo, Japan, in the year 2010."

There was a collective exclamation of, "**_2010_**?!"

"Fuckin' time travelers?!"

"No way! Time travel is impossible!"

"Actually, it's possible. You just have to fall down the right well."

"Shutup, dog-boy!"

"2010...? But... That's over 100 years in the future..."

"No it's not! It's only six!"

"Six? What the hell time period have you been living in?"

"The one in 2004."

"You're from the future?!"

"You're from the past?"

"No, I'm from the present. You're from the future."

"We're all from the past if this is really 2010!"

"Shut up, genius fox-boy!"

"...?"

"Oro? Fox-boy?"

"**_2010_?"**

"Yes, 2010, moron, now would you stop repeating it?"

"I'M WARNING YOU, SAITOU! SHUT UP BEFORE I TEAR THOSE UGLY BANGS RIGHT OUT OF YOUR SCALP!"

"I'd like to see you try, Rooster-head."

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."

"CHILDREN!"

"Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..."

"Ahem!" the girl said, clearing her throat. "If you'll calm down, I'll explain. We created a time traveling machine so we could capture you cuties while you were in your prime bishie-ness. Since at some point between 2004 and 2010, Kurama-dono cuts his hair and Yusuke becomes a father, we didn't want that. And since Saitou, Sano, Hiko-san, Aoshi-san, Kenshin, Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, and Miroku are all dead now, that wouldn't work too well."

"We aren't dead!"

"Well that's because you came from your time, directly here, and didn't age. So you're still alive and safe."

"Oh."

"Any more questions?"

"How long are you planning on keeping us here?" Miroku asked.

"As long as we want."

Hiei cursed.

"How do you plan to determine the ultimate 'bishie', dare I ask?" Hiko said.

"I'm glad you asked!" The girl smiled widely. "Bishounen challenge number one!"

The room seemed to dematerialize around them, and they were suddenly in a field. The girls were still there, all smiling.

"Reach the golden tree," one said. She held up a picture of a tree with gold leaves. "Of course, I'm not specifying how we judge these, because we don't want you to TRY to impress us, we just want to see how you act normally. Go!"

The girls vanished. The boys stood in silence for a while before Inuyasha said something rather rude about the girls. Just about everyone else agreed. Then they stood in silence for a few more minutes before Hiei spun around and punched an innocent tree for no apparent reason.

"This is shit!" he growled. "I'm not about to put up with some garbage about finding some tree! I should have slaughtered them right there!"

"IIE!!!" Kenshin protested. "Killing is wrong, de gozaru! How many times do I have to tell you that before you'll stop saying such things?"

"You might as well save your breath and not tell me at all, because you're not going to stop me."

"I need NICOTINE!" Wolfwood complained. 

"Shut up, baka!" Saitou snapped."You're not helping."

"Look here, buster, I don't care if it's helping or not! I need my cigarettes!"

"Let's not fight, Saitou," Kenshin said.

"Shut up, Battousai." Saitou suddenly looked at Sano and punched him across the face. "Ah. I feel better now."

"OW! DAMMIT, SAITOU!" Sano screamed, nursing his face. "What the hell was that for?"

"You deserved it."

Sano growled and lunged at Saitou, who caught his fists and held him in place.

"Moron."

Sano snarled some rude insult under his breath and attempted to push Saitou backwards. Of course, he didn't do too great a job of that. Off to the side, Hiei was marveling at how much this scenario reminded him of himself and Kuwabara.

"STOP!" Yusuke yelled finally. Sano continued glaring at Saitou even after the man let go of his wrists.

"We need to decide what we're going to do. We need to _cooperate. We don't know how these girls are judging us, so our best bet would be to act normal, wouldn't it?" Kurama said._

"Iie. If we act normal then they'll know what we're really like and they'll actually choose the one of us they like best, and they'll know about us and everything, right?" Yusuke said.

"It doesn't matter, really," Hiei said suddenly, staring at the tree he'd punched earlier. "I just found the stupid golden tree."

Everybody stared. Everybody felt a bit stupid. The girls appeared again.

"Congratulations! All of you pass the first challenge! Now, when we send you back, there will be a new arrangement in the order of cages, as we noticed a bit of bickering amongst a few of you. We'll tend to you first, then we'll send you back."

"... A bit of bickering?" Sano said, wondering if they'd consider it more than 'a bit' if Saitou had broke his jaw.

Meanwhile, at the scene of the crime... Or something.

"Tha'ssit... I'm gonna go fine 'Iei..."

Shadow stumbled out the door and promptly fell off the porch. Eclipse sweatdropped and dragged her back inside.

"Shadow, you pumped yourself full of sleeping pills. How is it you're still awake?"

"Wake? I... I'm noh 'wake... 'Air's 'Iei?"

"Hiei is sleeping, just like you should be. If you don't fall asleep soon, I'm gonna bust open your skull."

"Buft open? Aaaaaayyyyy... Mew."

Shadow promptly fell flat on her face, snoring loudly.

"God... It takes ten pills to put her out!"

Eclipse dragged her friend inside, downstairs, onto one of the infirmary beds, and strapped her down. Then she went and raided the kitchen.

~~~~~~~~

Dictionary: I didn't use any words that weren't defined in previous chapters except "ahou" which means about the same thing as "baka." Idiot, simpleton, etc etc etc. I used a few less Japanese words in this chapter and the second one than I did in the first one... I used like... a lot in that chapter... Heh. Duh. Oi. Anyway. Bye.

Oh, I need to start putting together a rescue team. Only people from the anime I've included, preferably girls, but if there's any guys remaining (like Kuwabara or Yahiko), I could put them on the team too. But who all should I put on the rescue team (Preferably people who can fight.)?


	4. INTERMISSION

**INTERMISSION**

"Let me explain this great work of art to you. This is called darkness. I believe the way it was created was by turning off the light. And then, there came a voice, and it said 'LET THERE BE _LIGHT_!' And voila! God complied, and the earth was blessed with the miracle of LIGHT," a voice said.

What had previously been dark became light, and Shadow became visible, standing in front of a black curtain, looking panicked.

"Guys, this is horrible! Can you believe somebody has stolen my bishies from me? THEY STOLE THEM! Who knows where they hell they are! They could be locked in a little room with no food and only a little hole in the ground to use as a toilet! They could be forced into slavery and beaten to a pulp! They could be hung by their ears from a ceiling!! Maybe they were kidnapped by Scottish people and are being forced to wear kilts!" O_O 

"TIME FOR 'WHAT'S INSIDE SHADOW'S MIND?'" the voice from earlier said.

A screen lowered from the ceiling and some cables and wires attached themselves to Shadow's head. She still looked horrified (O_O) and didn't seem to notice. An image pops up on the screen of Hiei and Kurama wearing skirts. The screen blows up and the wires fry Shadow's head.

"As I was saying, they're probably being tortured in horrible ways, and... and... and... KOENMA'S BEIN' A ^(&%ING @$$ AND WON'T GO LOOK FOR THEM! WE'RE DOOOOOMED!!" She fell to her knees, sobbing. "DOOOOOOOOOOOOMED!!!"

Suddenly, the curtain moves and Kenshin's head pops out.

"Shadow-san, Sanosuke wanted me to ask you where the wasabi is."

Shadow's eyes turned red and she glared at the floor.

"YOU RUINED MY SUSPENSEFUL SOB STORY!!!"

"Oro?"

Shadow started fuming.

"Uh-oh."

Shadow got up and stomped over to Kenshin. He cowered. Shadow hovered over him, looking like she was about to explode. Then suddenly... "Oh well!"

"Oro?" Kenshin promptly fell flat on his face. @_@

Shadow turned around to face the camera. "WELCOME TO BACKSTAGE!" 

She pulled a rope and the curtain opened to reveal... well... just about anything anybody would ever want. The entire cast of the story... All the bishies, none of the unnamed fanatic girls (that'd be torture! They're not acting!), and some of the other random people who haven't been in the story yet. There's a bar, there's a resturant, if I spelled that wrong I don't care, there's an indoor in ground pool AND a hot tub, a huge big screen TV (movie theater size!), walls of shelves full of food, a ginormous fridge/freezer, books, video games, food, soda, cards, tables, the sacred fluffy chair, some couches... can you think of anything else you'd want? Well if you can, it was there too. Shirtless bishies included. Anywho, the room has to be at least the size of... half a football field, maybe? Yes, that's big.

"I thought you weren't gonna introduce backstage?" Eclipse asked from the edge of the pool.

"Kenshin WRECKED my sob story. So I decided, oh, what the screw, why not show all the fans we live in luxury?"

"Oh." Eclipse vanished underwater.

Shadow walked around the giant room to check on all the guys. Miroku and Youko Kurama were playing poker. Shadow carefully avoided the small gathering of perverts. Yusuke and Kuwabara (not a bishie, but I said other random people, didn't I?) were playing video games. As Shadow watched, Kuwabara lost and got mad and started strangling Yusuke. She avoided them, too. She made her way to the bar.

Wolfwood, Vash, and Hiko were sitting there drinking sake or beer or something. Aoshi was sitting with them, but he was drinking tea (if I recall, he mentioned he loses his temper or something if he drinks, ne?). Since they seemed slightly drunk already, Shadow avoided them. She was doing quite a bit of avoiding, wasn't she?

"Hey Shadow!"

She turned around and remembered the pool. She was surprised to see Hiei was actually in the pool, along with Sanosuke. They were promptly drenched by Eclipse doing a cannonball off the high dive.

"Come here," Hiei ordered. Shadow walked over, carefully staying out of his reach.

"What?"

"You just gonna pace around and avoid people?" Sano asked.

"Where's Saitou?"

Sano submerged and blew bubbles. Then he burst up out of the water. "Who cares?!"

"I don't know. And Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru, too."

"I think they're probably all off killing each other," Hiei answered.

"Shit! They can't do that! We're only on chapter four!"

"Well... Wait. Inuyasha was with Kagome... Sesshoumaru is probably dueling with Saitou. Who cares? As long as they don't go and vanish or die, I think we'll be okay," Hiei said.

"Get in the pool!" Sano ordered, lunging out and latching onto her leg.

"Eep!"

"CANNONBALL!!!" Eclipse screamed suddenly.

Woosh. Sano and Hiei were drenched again. Not like they weren't wet already, being as they were sitting in a swimming pool...

Eclipse pulled herself out of the pool and stood beside Shadow.

"Gonna swim?"

"In my clothes?"

"NO! GO SKINNY DIPPING!" Youko yelled.

Shadow hurled a brick at his head. He dodged and it hit Miroku.

"I'm gonna go change, then. I'll be back," Shadow said. She pried Sanosuke off and ran away.

"Well FINE then," Youko sulked. "I was all set for her to go skinny dipping."

"Shut up, perv. You know she wouldn't do that," Eclipse snapped.

"But it'd be cool if she did, wouldn't it?"

The next brick made contact... with Miroku again.

"MOST DEFINITELY NOT!" Eclipse snapped. "I DON'T WANT TO SEE MY BEST FRIEND NAKED!"

"I do."

Hiei flung a whole bag of bricks at Youko. Where he got them, I don't know, but they made contact and the fox went out cold on the floor with swirly eyes.

"Sanosuke!"

Yahiko ran up to the edge of the pool. 

"Hey, Yahiko. What's up?"

"Have you seen Kenshin?"

Sano pointed. Kenshin was sitting off to one side looking clueless.

"KAORU, I FOUND KENSHIN!"

Kaoru came running and tackled Kenshin. The two of them went sliding out of view. Hiei blinked. 

"That was odd."

A few minutes later, once Hiei, Sano, and Eclipse had started having races in the pool, Shadow came back in a black one-piece swimming suit, dragging Saitou and Sesshoumaru by the wrists.

"Stay in the room, if you please. I'm not really one to mess with, being owner and all, so I suggest you stay here and enjoy yourselves," she snapped. "Go get drunk or some- No, I take that back. Saitou, avoid the sake. Please. No if you don't mind..." Shadow ran to the pool and did a cannonball into the deep end. Then she swam along the bottom, as low as she could without hitting the floor, and sat there for a second before she saw Sano swimming near her. She leap out of the water and landed on top of him, forcing him under. Needless to say, that caused a bit of thrashing, and eventually they both ended up hanging onto each other to stay above the water and gasping for breath. Hiei and Eclipse watched from a few feet away, looking kind of confused.

"Don't *gasp* ever *gasp* do that *gasp* AGAIN!" Sano snapped. He shoved Shadow's head underwater. She blew bubbles at him fought out of his grip, surfaced, and spit a mouthful of water in his face. 

"Let the water wars begin!" Eclipse declared as Sano sputtered and shook his head vigorously to get the water out of his face. 

Eventually, everybody was in the pool except Aoshi, Saitou, and Sesshoumaru, because they didn't engage themselves in 'foolish behavior'. And Inuyasha, because he was who-knows-where with Kagome doing who-knows-what.

"SAITOU! Come here!" Shadow ordered, getting a free second away from the general war field... er... pool...

"What, and play your stupid water games? I'd rather not," Saitou said dryly, taking a drag on his cigarette.

"Can't smoke and swim at the same time? Afraid of water?" Shadow taunted. Saitou just stared. With a growl, Shadow jumped out of the pool and grabbed Saitou's wrist, attempting to drag him to the pool. He smirked. She went around and tried to push him forward. He barely moved. With another growl, Shadow jumped up and latched onto his back, stole his cigarette from his hand, and spit on it to put it out. Then she handed it back to him.

"Where do you keep your endless stash of cigarettes, anyway?"

"It's not endless," Saitou growled. "That was my last one."

"Gasp! I'll give you more if you get in the pool."

"Why do you care so much if I get in the stupid pool?"

"Because... I don't know! Just do it!"

"No."

"DO IT!"

"No."

"I'll bite off your ear!" Shadow clamped her teeth onto his ear.

"SHADOW, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!"

Shadow let go and looked up at the sound of Hiei's voice. She smiled innocently, sweatdropped, and let go of Saitou. His back was soaked from having Shadow clamped onto him. 

"Leave him alone, Shadow. He's a mean old geezer," Eclipse said.

"Belly flop?" Shadow said. Everybody was confused for a second until Shadow leaped at them all, aiming to do a belly flop. Everybody made way or dove underwater as she slammed into the water, sending out a mini-tsunami.

Saitou took off his drenched police jacket and went and lay down on the couch. Sesshoumaru vanished off again, probably to go try to kill his brother. Aoshi went and got in the hot tub. Everybody else was still drowning each other in the pool.

Hours and hours and hours later...

Everybody was lying around on the floor or at the edges of the pool or hot tub or on the couch, several of them asleep and all of them exhausted from water wars. Saitou was sitting on the couch, looking rather relaxed, and smoking. Hiei was sitting beside him, sleeping while sitting up, with Shadow leaning her head on his shoulder, also asleep. Shadow had Saitou's police jacket draped around her, but she was still in her swimming suit. Eclipse was curled up nearby on the floor with her head on Vash's chest. He was also asleep. Sanosuke and Kenshin were in the hot tub, along with Kaoru. Yusuke and Kuwabara were back to video games. Miroku and Youko were back to playing poker. Wolfwood was playing chess with Hiko. Everybody else was either watching TV or asleep at the bar... And then there was Sesshoumaru... and... he was... playing... a Gameboy...? Yes, that's right. He was sitting in a corner playing a Gameboy. O_o Sure.

And _that_ is how life is outside the stories.

Muwahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

____________________________________________________________________

I don't know what the point of this was, but hey, whatever. It's there. Whatever.


	5. In which people are injured and tortured...

CHAPTER FOUR

In which people are injured and tortured and punished

The day after Bishounen Challenge #1.

The order of the caged guys was now this: Inuyasha, Sano, Hiei, Saitou, Aoshi, Sesshoumaru. That everybody...? Okay, we're good.

The author is still recovering from Intermission. Give her a break.

The fanatics didn't realize they hadn't really improved the situation much, because Sanosuke was now beside _Hiei_ and Hiei was beside Saitou, and those two seemed to be what you might almost be able to call friends. Sooo... Yeah.

It seemed to be sometime around noon, judging from the fact that the guys had been sitting around doing nothing for hours since they'd been given breakfast. Really, they were getting rather angry. It'd been... two days... since they were put here? Only one day for Vash, Wolfwood, Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, and Miroku. Hiei had taken to doing push-ups for hours and hours. Saitou and Wolfwood sat there massaging their temples because they had really horrible withdrawal headaches. None of them talked much because all they felt like doing was murdering something (Except Kenshin and Vash... Softies.).

"This sucks!" Yusuke whined. "What the heck are we supposed to do? I wonder if anybody has even noticed we're gone."

"Yusuke, use your brain..." Kurama started.

"If you have one," Hiei added. Then he continued counting his push-ups.

"You, Hiei, and I were all at Shadow's house before we ended up here. I think Shadow would realize we were gone."

"Oh, geez. _Shadow_. Like Shadow's gonna be a big help," Yusuke said. "We're doomed. Keiko's gonna think I died again."

"Yusuke, Shadow isn't just some lunatic. She might seem like she is, but I'm sure she has enough brains to go to Koenma or something," Kurama said. "And if she doesn't, maybe Kuwabara or Eclipse will."

"Eclipse wasn't even there!"

"Oh yeah."

"And we can't count on Kuwabara to remember his own name," Hiei said. 

"Like I said. We're doomed," Yusuke said. He turned so he was facing mainly everybody else in the room. "Any of you got girlfriends or wives or sisters or mothers who would worry about you?"

"Hai," Kenshin answered. "Sanosuke and I... And Saitou... And Aoshi... But shishou doesn't..."

Kenshin received a blow to the head for that.

"Ow..."

"Okay, anybody else?" Yusuke asked.

"Inuyasha and I," Miroku answered. 

"I wouldn't say Millie and Meryl would worry about us," Wolfwood said under his breath to Vash.

"No. They'll just be really pissed that I'm gone and I didn't say anything to them," Vash answered.

"Okay, so almost all of us have people at home or where ever the hell we came from, who will worry about us," Yusuke said. "Too bad they can't all gang up and find us."

"Time travel isn't entirely impossible, obviously," Kurama reasoned. "Maybe they could."

"I really doubt that they know we're howevermany years in the future. And even if they did, how would they manage to come up with a time machine? We're talking about Shadow and Kuwabara here. And unless Shadow has a time machine hidden somewhere in her house-" Yusuke glanced at Hiei, who shook his head. "-then they'll have to MAKE ONE or something, and I DON'T THINK THEY CAN MAKE A FLIPPIN' TIME MACHINE! THEY'RE IDIOTS!"

"Yusuke-san... losing your temper won't help," Kenshin said cautiously.

"Yeah, Yusuke. Maybe you should be in one of these cages too!" Hiei said. "Now just shut up about Shadow's intelligence."

"Ooooh, a bit touchy on that subject, huh?" Sano taunted. "She's the one you live with, isn't she?"

"Yes."

"Ooooh, well maybe you're doing more than just _living_ with her," he continued. Hiei looked at Saitou.

"Can I hit him?" he pleaded.

"Feel free," the officer answered. Hiei instantly spun around and punched Sano straight in the face (through the bars, of course. I'm not forgetting they were there). Sano stumbled backwards holding his bleeding nose.

"Nice one, Hiei," Yusuke said sarcastically.

"Hiei, let's not do that anymore," Kurama said. "You know reacting with such fury only makes him more suspicious, anyway."

Only Kenshin thought to ask Sano if he was okay.

"Oh, yeah, I'm fine," he answered sarcastically. "About as fine as I'd be if I'd had a house dropped on my face!"

"... I think you're a little better than that, de gozaru," Kenshin said.

"I don't feel like it! God, Hiei, do you wear metal knuckles or something?"

"Does it look like I do?" Hiei asked, holding up his hand.

Sano grumbled some more, but he was more focused on stopping the blood flow from his nose. Eventually it stopped, but by that point both his hands were rather bloody, and he had nothing to do with the blood except wipe it on his shirt. And that's exactly what he did.

A little while later, the guys were all 'tended to' or whatever the girls liked to call it. Sano's little caretaker noticed the blood, flipped out, had a heart attack or three, and maybe a seizure, died, came back to life, blacked out, then ran to go get their leader (Kurama's fangirl) to tell her what had happened (somewhere in there between her spotting it and dying, Sano had explained).

"What is it?" Kurama's fanatic asked when Sano's fanatic came flying through the door.

"That little twit Hiei hurt my Sanosuke-sama!!!" the girl screamed before totally breaking down into tears. Kurama flinched.

"I knew nothing good could come from that..." he muttered. 

"Hurt? How bad?"

"Oceans and oceans of blood! Rivers and lakes and oceans!"

"What? It wasn't that bad!" Kurama protested. "He gave Sano a bloody nose."

"AND LAKES AND OCEANS AND OCEANS AND LAKES!!!"

"It really isn't that bad."

"QUIET!" Kurama's fanatic finally screamed. Instantly, the other girl stopped crying. Kurama looked worried.

"What're we gonna do to him?" the other girl asked eagerly.

"Do?" Kurama said, startled. "You mean like... punishment?"

"Kurama, dear, it's really nothing to worry your little head about," his fanatic comforted.

"Yes it is! If you're going to punish him, I'd like to know. He _is_ my best friend, after all."

"Oh. Yes, well I suppose so. Well, we have to decide on a punishment. The victim has some say. Bring him here," the leader girl said. Sano's fanatic was back moments later with Sanosuke.

"What's going on?"

"We have to decide on a punishment for your assailant," Kurama's fanatic said matter-of-factly.

"My what?"

"Hiei," Kurama simplified. "They want to punish Hiei for hitting you."

"Why don't they want to punish Saitou? He hit me too."

"What? When?!" the girls asked.

"During that thing with the golden tree or whatever... What kind of punishment did you have in mind, exactly?"

"... Well, either you can return the pain to them, or we can lock them in a room with their particular captor and give the girls complete freedom."

"Whoa. I think I know what that might mean, and... I can't imagine that'd be good for the girls. What exactly did you mean I can return the pain to them?"

"You get to hit them as hard as they hit you," Kurama simplified. 

"I'm not sure I'm really comfortable with that..."

"Well then how should we punish them?"

"Hm..."

Meanwhile... in the present...

"OH give me a hooooooooooooome where the buffalo roooooooooooooam, and the deeeeeeeer and the antelope plaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!"

"Shadow, would you stop it with that incessant racket!" teen Koenma whined, covering his ears.

"Not until you try to find Hiei." She burst into song again. "The hiiiiiiiiiiills are alive, with the sound of MUUUSSSSSIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIC!!!"

Koenma groaned and held a folder over his head as if he could protect himself from the singing that way.

"Something-or-other and whiskers on kittens-- Oh! Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, something-or-other-and-some-junk-fits-in-here, these are a few of my favorite things and-I-don't-knowwwwwwwwwww-the-words!"

"Shut up!!"

"You gonna help yet?"

"NO!"

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOKLAHOMA, WHERE THE WINDS COME SWEEPING DOWN THE PLAINS, AND SOMETHING ABOUT PRAIRIE GOATS OR SOMETHING, AND I DON'T KNOW THE WORDS TO THIS ONE EITHER!!!!!!!!!!"

"Since you don't know the words, you can shut up now."

"Doe, a deer, a female deer. Ray, a drop of golden sun. Me, a name, I call myself. Fa, some letters that make a sound. So, with needle and some thread. La, something that comes after so. Ti, a drink with jam and bread. Then we go back to doe, a deer, a female deer--"

"Shadow! Please!"

"Or I could do this!" Shadow started doing one of those freaky Russian dances with the arms crossed and the kicking the legs and whatnot, singing some notes along with it and shouting "HEY" every time she kicked out her leg. Koenma groaned.

Eclipse had gone nearly completely unnoticed in the corner. She'd come in with Shadow, stood there, then, when Shadow started singing, had whipped out a pair of trusty earmuffs and a book, and hadn't moved since.

"Ummmm..." Shadow muttered, staring at the ceiling, finally done with her Russian dance.

"Are you done yet?"

"Nope!" Shadow said cheerfully, then she burst into an opera. In French. Where she learned French... The world will never know.

"Shadowwww!!!"

Giving up on opera, since it had started to annoy her, Shadow started yodeling. She started singing 'The Lonely Goatherd' from _The Sound of Music_, which involved a good bit of yodeling. She stopped, thinking of another song.

"The sun will come up, TOMORROW--"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

"It won't?"

"SHUT UP!"

"IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. IT'S A SMALL WORLD AFTER ALL. IT'S A SMALL WORLD, A SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, SMALL, PEA-SIZED WORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRLLLLLLLLLLD!!!"

"Shut up!!!! PLEASE?"

"Oh, once upon a yodelin', yooooooooodelin', yodellayhehooooooo, yodel yodellay, yodel yodellay, hehooooooooooooo!" Shadow stopped and looked really excited. "Oh, have you ever heard that song about the nut?! I forget how it goes... Something like this: Cuz I'm a nut. I'm a nut... Then there was this other one... Like... Oh! I'm bringin' home a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me. I'm bringin' home a baby bumblebee. Ow! It stung me! IIIIIIIIIIIIIII'M squishin' up a baby bumblebee, won't my mommy be so proud of me, I'm squishing up a baby bumblebee-- Then there's this other one, like... Ten little monkeys jumpin' on the bed, one fell down and bumped his head. Took him to the doctor and what'd he say? This lil' monkey's gonna die today. Nine lil' monkeys jumpin' on the bed. One fell down and bumped his head. Took him to the doctor and what'd he say? This lil' monkey's gonna die today. EIGHT lil' monkeys-- Did you ever hear about the Indian and the white man? They were sitting there, drinking tea and talking, drinking tea and talking, and that night, the Indian went home and drowned in his own teapee. Hmmmmmmmm... Ever heard of Rammstein? It's a German band. There's this one song... and... I don't know the words, but it's really cool. It's in German. I got the translations, and they sing about strange things. Like one song was something about not having a mother, then wanting to kill the mother you never had or something. It's pretty messed up. You know what? One time I was like... fishing... and I caught a boot..." She burst into song again. "Oh what a beautiful morning, oh what a beautiful day, I have a beautiful feeling... OH MY GOD! I just thought of the longest, most annoyingest song in all of the known world. Wanna hear it? It goes like this: 99 bottles of sake on the wall, 99 bottles of sake. Take one down, pass it around, 98 bottles of sake on the wall!"

All the talking between songs, Shadow had said very very fast, almost incoherent she said it so fast. That had driven Koenma nuts. Now this song was getting on his last nerves. Especially since Shadow was nearly screaming it.

"97 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALL, 97 BOTTLES OF SAKEEEEEEEEEEE, YOU TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND, 96 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALL! 96 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALL, 96 BOTTLES OF SAKE, YOU TAKE ONE DOWN, PASS IT AROUND, 95 BOTTLES OF SAKE ON THE WALLL!!"

Koenma was yanking at his hair and hitting himself with folders.

"SHUT UP RIGHT NOW BEFORE I HAVE YOU BEHEADED!"

Shadow shut up really fast, but she wasn't scared or intimidated. She leaned really close to him and said quietly, "I don't see why you can't just go look for them. They're _your_ little spirit workers, after all. You should be _worried_ about them. Can't you just search for their energies or something? I mean, don't you have like... world cam? You're almost God. Can't you do something like that?"

"Yes. I can. But I don't see why I should."

"Please? I'll kiss your shoes. Want me to kiss your shoes?"

"No."

"... I'll kiss you. You want a kiss?"

"..."

"Ha! Can't deny that so fast, can you?!"

"No, I don't want a kiss. You aren't going to change my mi--"

Shadow leaned forward a few more inches, grabbed Koenma's pacifier out of his mouth, and kissed him right on the lips to stop him from finishing his sentence. (Well she's become a bit more... hm... flirty? Maybe Youko'd have more luck with her now? Lol. I doubt it.)

At that particular moment, Eclipse just happened to look up from her book. Her jaw dropped. Of course, she had on her earmuffs, so she hadn't heard anything that had been going on.

Shadow pulled back. "Gonna do it now?"

"...What?"

"FIND HIEI AND KURAMA AND YUSUKE!"

"Oh. Oh yeah. I'll do that." 

Koenma, seeming a bit dazed at first, flipped a switch and the screen in his office started displaying various pictures very, very fast. After a minute of watching a blur of images, Koenma made a dissatisfied noise.

"What is it?" Shadow asked.

"They aren't... located. Anywhere. On Earth. Or in Makai. They must be hiding their energies, or somebody else is."

"WELL WHAT GOOD IS THAT DOING _ME_?!" Shadow yelled.

"Not a whole lot."

"FIND THEM NOW OR I'LL KICK YOU SIX WAYS INTO NEXT TUESDAY!"

"Look here little girl, I really don't see where you get off telling me, the almighty Koenma, what to do." Well, he forgot about that kiss pretty quick, ne?

"Look here, binkie sucker! I think you should care at least a little bit about where those guys are because if you need your spirit detectives, the only one you've got left is KUWABARA! And do you know how helpful KUWABARA would be!?" She forgot about that kiss pretty fast too, it seems.

"Not very. Look, it'll take a while to find them. I'll search, but in the meantime, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

And with that, Shadow and Eclipse vanished from Koenma's office without any warning, and ended up on Shadow's porch. She started cussing and screaming and kicking things and eventually only stopped when Eclipse whapped her in the head with a hardback book.

"Well what're we supposed to do now?" Shadow asked, rubbing her head. "Just sit around until he contacts us?"

"That is exactly what we're going to do. But WHAT THE HELL DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING KISSING KOENMA?!"

"What? Oh yeah."

"OH YEAH? HOW CAN YOU BE SO CASUAL? I was reading my book, so who knows how long you two had been sitting there makin' out on his desk!"

"First, we were not making out, and second, we were not on his desk."

"Bull shit. You were on his desk, Shadow, and you know it."

"Was not."

"Yeah. You were."

"Was not."

"YES YOU WERE."

"No I wasn't."

"SHUT UP. YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT."

"I think I know perfectly well. _I'm_ the one who was on the desk, I think I should know if I wasn't or not."

".................O_o....... Wait! You just said you were the one _on the desk_."

"Damn."

"You WERE on his desk! You slut!"

"SLUT?"

"You heard me!"

"WELL I THINK YOU SHOULD BE SHOT!"

"_I'm_ not the one who was smooching with the prince of Reikai."

"It's not my fault I know how to kiss guys without their protest."

"Oh yeah? Then why haven't you ever kissed Hiei?"

"..."

"Ha! You love him and you know it. I mean, if you can kiss Koenma, surely you could kiss _Hiei_ without him minding."

"..."

"Or... maybe you already _have_ and just don't want to tell me?"

"Shut up, Eclipse Shinomori, before I knock some part of your body off."

"Boohoo, am I pissing off the royal highness? OW! Dammit, girl, that hurt!"

"It was supposed to, you ahou!"

"Owwwwwwwwww."

(If you're wondering, Shadow kicked Eclipse in the shin. Really hard. With her combat boots. Not the steel-toed ones, lucky for Eclipse)

"You know what? I think you're jealous."

"Jealous? Of you?! Ha! You know, you should be treating me a bit better. You're lucky I'm nice enough to hang around you all this time while you're going through this moment of loopy insane loneliness," Eclipse answered tartly.

"Moment of loopy insane loneliness? First, I have been loopy and insane for many, many, many moments that you weren't around, and second, I'm not lonely, I'm angry. Grrr. Ya know?"

"Yeah, whatever. You kiss Koenma cuz you're angry. You pace around Koenma's office singing and dancing cuz you're angry. I think you need a tranquilizer."

"NO! No tranq. No tranqs for me for if you come near me with any of that crap, I shall shoot thee. With a gun that go BANG." Shadow paused. "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOH give me a HOME where the BUFFALO ROAM and the DEER and the ANTELOPES PLAY. Where SELDOM is heard a DISCOURAGING WORD and the SKIES are not CLOUDY OR GRAY! HOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOME, HOME ON THE RANGE..."

Hiei and Saitou were now standing in an empty room. The walls were white. It reminded Hiei of a loony bin. He was slightly nervous. Very slightly. He was mostly just MAD. Very mad.

Saitou was not only mad, he was currently plotting his revenge on the ahou who landed him here. Sanosuke Sagara. 

"So..." Hiei said. Saitou looked down at him. "How exactly is this punishment?"

Before Saitou could say anything (if he had been planning on saying anything), the room vanished around them, just like it had with Bishounen Challenge #1. Only this time, instead of a field, what with the flowers and trees and birds and whatnot (though that would have been sufficient punishment), they ended up on a teeny tiny little island, slightly bigger than one of their cells back in the evil circular prison of doom in Tokyo 2010. Who knows where or when they were now. The only thing on the island other than themselves was about twenty green penguins and a palm tree.

"... What are penguins doing on a tropical island?" Hiei asked. "And why are they green?!" 

"The water is pink," Saitou said dryly. Hiei looked at it with mild surprise.

"Okay, I'm still wondering how this is punishment. Really... Being trapped on a tiny tropical island surrounded by pink water with only you and a bunch of green penguins for company really doesn't irk me," he said, starting to lose the initial anger he'd felt at being 'punished.' Suddenly, the voice of one of the fangirls came from seemingly nowhere.

"It's punishment because, first, those penguins are _tropical_ penguins, and second, you're staying on that little island until you retrieve the silver medallion engraved with a ten point star and sporting a ruby embedded in the center."

"A treasure hunt?" Saitou said, disgusted.

"What's so bad about tropical penguins? Why are they different from arctic penguins? Other than the fact that they're green, of course," Hiei asked.

"Well, they aren't the greatest swimmers in the world, they're quite stupid, but they're very territorial, prone to violent outbreaks, and they have very sharp teeth," the girl answered.

Hiei inspected the penguins and noticed that it seemed they _were_ territorial, and they _did_ have teeth, because at the moment, he and Saitou were surrounded by green penguins baring their fangs at them. 

"And WHY IS THE WATER PINK?!"

"Because that's how the Caribbean is in 2015!"

"You're kidding?! We're in 2015 now?!"

"Hai. And I suggest you get away from those penguins... They've killed people before."

"What?!"

"Don't panic, they can tell."

Hiei let out a snarl, then backed away from the impending doom that the penguins signified. Really, green penguins with fangs are rather intimidating, especially when they're moving closer and growling. Hiei realized he'd backed into the water, ankle-deep. Saitou was beside him.

"This is embarrassing," Hiei managed to say before all twenty penguins lunged at them. The two turned and dove into the water.

There was some truth to what the girl had said about the birds being idiots. Actually there was a lot of truth. Three of them sank as soon as they hit the water. The others managed to figure out that they'd only landed in 6-inch deep water and they walked back to their island while Hiei and Saitou floated a few feet away watching, confused. They exchanged confused glances. They floated underwater for a while until Hiei realized his lungs were aching from holding his breath so long, and his eyes widened. He shot up to the surface and gasped for breath. A second later, Saitou surfaced.

"This *gasp* is really *gasp* stupid," Hiei said. He calmed his breathing before continuing. "Besides... It's not going to do any good."

Saitou didn't reply. Hiei thought nothing of it.

"So... What are we gonna do? We can't just float here forever. In pink water."

"I suppose... All we really can do is search for their stupid medallion."

"Great. Well. Good luck," Hiei said. "And don't drown or anything, because I am NOT performing CPR." With that, Hiei took a deep breath and vanished underwater. Saitou looked slightly confused, but he vanished too.

Meanwhile, the penguins, as stupid as they are, were gathered around two out of the remaining seventeen, watching them duke it out--Penguin style. (Primitive form of entertainment. Penguin boxing.)

______________________________________________________________________________________

Do you really need the dictionary? I think all words were defined in previous chapters. Oh. Somebody at one point in a review asked what –dono means. It's a very, very respectful suffix. Well… one place I read said it was just below God, and another person said it was above God. God is Kami-sama. –sama is the suffix you use when speaking about/to God. So in this chapter I think one of the fanatics said something about Sanosuke-sama. She thinks of him as a God. ^_~ So anyway, -dono is really, really respectful. Let's just leave it at that. ^_^


	6. In which Bishie Challenge 2 takes place ...

Any errors are because computers suck. I sent it through M-Word's spell check, but I didn't ever get the chance to reread it, so… Whatever. Anyway, I don't have time now cuz I'm expecting a phone call from my best friend cuz her b-day is Sunday and I'm going to her house. Anyway, here it is. Enjoy.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

**CHAPTER FIVE**

In which Bishie Challenge #2 takes place and Shadow pops pills

Hiei and Saitou had been on the tropical island in 2015 with green penguins and pink water for one full day already. They hadn't found the slightest trace of a silver medallion with a ten-point star and a ruby embedded in the center. However, they _had_ managed to kill and eat one of the tropical penguins. They realized that penguin meat tasted bit like a mixture between fish and beef. **Not chicken.** Actually, if you want the honest truth, it tasted exactly like tropical penguin meat.

Anyway, over this full 24-hour period, they had decided that there was NO WAY IN HELL this was really a Caribbean island, even in 2015. They had a good bit of evidence. First, they'd seen fluorescent yellow dolphins. If that wasn't enough, these dolphins spoke. Yes, they spoke in perfectly understandable Japanese. Well, all they'd said to the two guys was, "Hello and welcome to the universe," or something to that effect. Of course, when a pod of fluorescent yellow dolphins swim by and welcome you to the universe, you have to suspect something's up. That is... if you haven't already suspected something because of green fanged penguins and pink water.

The second thing was the fact that they had seen a man float by on a boat shaped like a smoothie, doing the Mexican hat dance. He waved to them and continued dancing. However, he slipped and fell in the ocean, and was promptly attacked by a ginormous mob of killer... oranges... At least... they looked like oranges... they were orange spheres... with... eyes... and very sharp... teeth.

So anyway... The two of them had a bit of a problem. First, they both thought they were losing their minds. Second, they couldn't touch dry land without being attacked by the penguins. Third, they had no clue where they could look for the medallion. So they were sitting in the shallows by the island, the pink water gently lapping at them, completely oblivious to anything else except the dancing sea star in front of them.

"Saitou..." Hiei said finally.

"Hn?"

"I'm afraid I'm going to lose my temper and my mind if I don't see something normal at some point in the near future."

"Hai."

"I mean... sand. The sand is normal. The tree is normal. But the tree is surrounded by GREEN PENGUINS. The water looks like pink lemonade. You know what? I'm going swimming."

"Fine."

Hiei stood up, walked to the drop-off, and let himself fall into the water. To anybody who didn't know, they'd have thought he had dropped dead. Saitou had barely noticed except for the splash and the increase in the little waves. He was still focused on the dancing sea star, which, I seem to have neglected to mention, was black with red eyes.

Underwater, Hiei swam along the bottom, searching for the medallion. He seriously doubted he'd find it, but really he had nothing better to do. He was so busy looking from side to side that he didn't look ahead, and was promptly eaten by a giant clam. I mean a GIANT clam. You could have fit a horse trailer in this baby!

Inside, though it was rather dark, Hiei had good enough vision to see, in the center of the clam, a sparkling silver medallion. His jaw would have dropped, but he didn't feel like having a mouthful of water and being unable to surface to spit it out. He grabbed the medallion and went about searching for an exit. 

He was quickly running out of breath. His lungs hurt. Finally, giving up on the idea of finding an exit, since apparently there was none, he decided he'd have to make one. He heated up the water inside the clam. It started boiling. The clam opened and he shot out so fast it was even faster than he normally was. He shot a jet of boiling pink water at the clam and it blew up. Then, he pushed off from the bottom of the ocean as hard as he could and rocketed towards the surface.

He surfaced a few feet away from Saitou, gasping for breath, blue in the face, but victorious, for the engraved silver medallion with the ruby in the center was firmly grasped in his right hand.

"What took you so long? I almost got worried," Saitou called. Hiei started towards him.

"This," he said, still panting slightly. He showed Saitou the medallion.

"You found it?! Where?"

"In a clam."

"A clam," Saitou stated dryly.

"Yes."

"You're serious?"

"Yes."

"What kind of clam? Fangs? Fluorescent orange? Did it have eyes and a smiley face?"

"It was about 30 feet in diameter, and its shell was more of a red than an orange, really," Hiei said, thinking back to the clam's last moments before he blew it up. "It actually doesn't matter in the least at the moment. It's dead. And if those girls don't get us out of here soon, they'll be joining it."

A voice appeared. Or... whatever voices do.

"Congratulations! Your punishment has been paid."

A second later, Hiei and Saitou were back in the white room. It seemed really dark in there compared with the constant (yes, constant, 24-hour) sunlight on the island. Of course, they were the only ones in the room. Hiei promptly passed out for some strange unknown reason. Probably a bit of a delayed reaction from having the chemical levels in his body get all jumbled like they do when you rise to fast from diving. Saitou looked down at him, completely emotionless, merely quirking an eyebrow and looking away. So cold... Heartless bastard.

"Oh God... Hiei!"

Kurama appeared in the room, along with his fanatic, Sano and his fanatic, and Hiei and Saitou's fanatics.

"Hey Saitou. Have fun?" Sano taunted. The police officer resisted the urge to lunge at Sanosuke, rip out his heart, and feed it to him through his nose.

Not-so-exactly-meanwhile, in the real world... Did I say that already once?

Well, over the day that Hiei and Saitou had spent in the shallow water around that island, Shadow and Eclipse had spent playing chess and watching cheesy Sci-Fi movies.

Koenma had found a strange trace of a temporal anomaly, which he was looking into. So far, all he'd realized was that it went from 2010 to 2004 to 2010 to 1880 to 2010 to a long long time ago, to some point at some time on another planet.

Really, all he'd decided was that somebody was messing with time and they had to be stopped. He also decided that these time messer-uppers were the ones who'd taken Hiei and the other two. He came to Shadow's house and told her his theory. She reacted quite... loudly.

"**WHAT?! YOU'RE KIDDING ME? TIME TRAVEL? THEY'RE IN 2010?!"**

"Yes, that's how it seems."

"Oi oi oi oi oi oi oi oi oi oi. OI."

"Really?"

"Yes, quite. So what are we gonna do about it?"

"What?"

"Time travel."

"We're gonna get a time machine or make a time portal. Then voila, we will go into the future and get back your precious Hiei."

"YAY! Thank you 8 billion times over!"

"Sure, whatever."

"When can we go?"

"Once I have a time portal set up and stabilized and safe!" Koenma snapped. Shadow cowered.

"Yes, sir, Koenma-sama."

With that, Koenma went POOF. Shadow stared at the spot he'd been. Slowly, she turned to Eclipse.

"THEY'RE IN THE _FUTURE_?!"

Hiei came to and found himself back in his cell in the round room. He had a throbbing headache, his clothes were still rather damp, but otherwise he was fine. He sat up.

"Oh, you're awake!" Kurama exclaimed. "How do you feel?"

"My head is pounding... It feels like I got run over by a bus."

"... Well, I suppose that's to be expected. You were pretty screwed up from your little trip..."

"Oh yeah? And why didn't Saitou pass out?"

"He's not the one who shot up from the bottom of the water so fast he nearly parted the sea."

"What? Wait. How did you..."

"The girls had a screen showing you guys the entire time."

"You're kidding."

"Nope. It was visual only... no audio, so if you were talking about murdering something, we wouldn't know."

"Oh. So you know about the pink water? And the green penguins... The guy on a smoothie doing the Mexican hat dance... And the talking dolphins?"

"I'm surprised you didn't lose any shred of sanity you had left."

"I felt like I was trapped inside Shadow's mind."

"Oh. That's scary."

"Yes it is. Only... I suppose if I'd been in her mind there would have been a bit more blood and gore, and a few weasels or three."

"Yeah."

Meanwhile, the other occupants of the room were staring at the two friends like they were off their cake.

"Weasels?" Sano ventured to ask.

"Shadow has about two dozen flesh-eating weasels in a spare room across the hall from her bedroom," Kurama explained. "She feeds door-to-door salesmen to them."

"Okay... Remind me to run away at top speed if I ever see her."

"Sometimes I regret not doing that myself," Hiei muttered.

Nobody said much of anything the rest of that day.

I am aware I've been leaving out the Inuyasha and Trigun characters in this, for which I am sorry... I'll try to fit them in more... later...

Meanwhile... at Shadow's house of three thousand insanities.

"Check mate," Shadow said dryly. Eclipse threw a pawn at her.

"You didn't even move yet!"

"I always hated chess."

"Live with it. I'm not giving up my glorious winning streak."

"I saw a cartoon once, where this old guy was playing chess with himself. He'd move a piece, get up and take off his glasses, walk to the other side of the table, and move an opponent piece, and then he went back and put on his glasses, and he just kept doing that... It was odd."

"What are you implying? That I should play chess with myself?"

"Exactly! Ta-ta!" Shadow chirped. She walked away, leaving Eclipse sitting there fuming. Suddenly, Koenma appeared.

"I have news," he said. Shadow nearly jumped out of her skin, but settled for a good yell.

"**DON'T DO THAT!!!"**

"Okay, okay... sheesh. Anyway... I discovered that Yusuke and the others are not the only ones missing. Don't ask me how I know this. I'm the great Koenma, after all... But it seems that ten other men have gone missing from their various time periods. They're all in 2010."

"And _why_ are they in 2010? Where? Hmmm? Answer me that!"

"Well _obviously_ somebody from that time period brought them there. And before you ask who or why, I don't know. The only way to find out would be to go to 2010 and locate them."

"Oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo," Shadow said. Koenma and Eclipse looked at her funny. Eclipse opened her mouth to say something, but before she could, Shadow said, "Let's go."

"Go?"

"Yes. To 2010. Pack your bags, we're forming a rescue team!" Shadow cheered. "Wooooooooooooooohooooooooooo!" She ran off up the stairs, reappearing a second later with her katana and a bottle of caffeine pills.

"Shadow, what--"

"I'm ready to go! Let's go!"

"Shadow!"

"Come on!"

"SHADOW LISTEN TO ME!"

Shadow closed her mouth and looked at Koenma politely. "Yessir?"

"Shadow, as of right now, I have no ways to get to 2010. It's time travel, you know. Most people don't keep time machines in their garage."

"I don't have a garage, but I think there's a space/time anomaly in the wall of the weasel's room," Shadow said, shrugging.

"That's doing us a lot of good," Eclipse said sarcastically. "We can't get in that room without sacrificing half the population of Tokyo to those damn bloodsuckers you've got in there!"

Shadow's eyes lit up and she ran out the door.

"Where's she going?" Koenma asked. Eclipse shrugged. They went to the window and watched Shadow as she popped a few caffeine pills and leapt off the porch, tearing across the yard towards a man pushing a baby carriage, leading his pregnant wife who had two kids beside her, on holding each arm.

"Oh _CRAP_!" Eclipse yelled. She yanked open the door, knocking Koenma backwards, and shot across the yard so fast she was almost nothing more than a blur. She made a flying tackle and slammed into Shadow's back, plowing her into the pavement of the road. The family on the sidewalk stared as Shadow had her arms tied behind her back, a wad of cloth shoved in her mouth, her legs tied together, and was dragged, kicking and gagging on cloth in a futile attempt to scream, back into her house, mercilessly bouncing off the steps up to the porch and slammed into the door frame on the way in. The father then turned to his kids.

"And _that_ is how you identify lunatics. Come along. We've got more research to do if we're going to make that 'Field Guide to Humans.'"

Meanwhile, inside, Shadow had the cloth taken out of her mouth, but she wasn't untied. She struggled and screamed and tried to bite off Koenma's feet, but all the accomplished was a bucket of cold water poured over her face, followed by more screaming.

"I can fix this," Koenma said, pulling a needle and a small bottle out of one of his pockets.

"What's that?" Shadow and Eclipse asked simultaneously.

"Well, I wouldn't call it a poison... It's a kind of tranquilizer that only stops working if you use the antidote."

Shadow's reaction was, "EEP."

Eclipse's reaction was, "Cool!!"

"Shall I use it on you, Shadow?"

Shadow paused. "May you never forget the blessings of foreign cheese, weasels, and freeze-dried squids. The God of Green Bananas is smiling down upon you." She gave them a stupid smile, then her eyes rolled back in her head and she went limp.

"What the...?"

A second later, Shadow was lying there snoring lightly. Eclipse and Koenma barely saved themselves from falling over, and settled for sweat drops and astonished looks of pure confusion.

"I was thinking..."

Wolfwood broke the dead silence that had settled over the room. Everybody looked at him with bored, emotionless eyes, deciding that if he was going to break the silence, he'd better have a good reason.

"...What good are we doing to those girls? We just sit in this room all day... They've only given us one of those stupid challenges, so what's the point of us being here?"

"There is no point," Inuyasha said. 

"They're fanatics. Fanatics are like that. They completely go nuts if they're even in the same room with their precious 'bishies.' They don't realize it's completely pointless. They aren't very focused on their objective, obviously..." Hiei drawled.

"Oh."

Silence again. They sat in silence for another hour before, without any warning at all, a voice exploded into the room. 

"HI CUTIES!!!"

The guys all jumped out of their skins.

"DON'T DO THAT!" Hiei screamed.

"It's time for your next challenge! I know, we haven't been keeping to our schedule, but that little punishment kind of put us off a little. Well, here goes!"

The guys were all transported into the white room, which dematerialized around them as it had the first time. They ended up standing in knee-deep snow.

"Snow," Yusuke said dryly, poking it. It was soft, fluffy, almost-two-feet-deep snow. He drew an angry Wal-Mart-style smiley face in it.

"Okay... Snow," Sano said dryly. "Lots and lots of it. What's the point?"

"There probably isn't one, as usual," Kurama said dryly.

"Okay, boys! If you didn't notice, this is a maze," the girl's voice said. The guys looked at each other, confused. How was miles and miles of snow a maze?

"No it's not," Inuyasha finally said. "What the heck kind of maze is it?! There's no paths!"

"Huh?" the girl said. "Oh! Okay..." A few seconds later, 20-foot-high bright pink barriers appeared. Saitou grimaced.

"Pink," he spat.

"Hai. Pink. Live with it. Now, I'm sure you all know the objective of a maze, right? Find the end. When you reach then end, you'll find a colored door. Go inside. Once you're inside the room, you'll find a key the same color as the door you entered. That key will be important to your next challenge, so if you don't finish the maze, you won't be able to go to the next challenge, and will therefore be disqualified. Okay, one person per entrance. You're also going to be judged by how fast you solve the maze. That, too, will be important to your next challenge. Ready?" the girl said. "Take your positions."

"Hey lady, hang on a second!" Sano yelled.

"Yes dear?"

Sano flinched at being called dear. "Um... Yeah, if you didn't notice, it's kind of cold. What the heck are you gonna do if we get frostbite or something while we're trying to solve your stupid maze?!"

"Oh, silly Sanosuke. There's a cure for frostbite now!"

"Oro?!"

"That's my line," Kenshin whispered.

"No more procrastination!" the girl chirped, suddenly serious.

"Yeah. We might freeze to death if we stand here any more," Wolfwood grumbled.

"Take your places!"

Everybody chose an entrance.

"Go!"

At first, the guys just walked along shivering, but after a while they got so cold they ran to keep warm. Of course, that had been the genius fanatic retard girls' intentions from the first place. Make it so cold they had to run to keep warm, and that way they wouldn't just stand there and refuse to participate in the challenge.

Finally, about 45 minutes later, the first person reached the end of their maze. 

Kurama stood in front of a blue door. He grabbed the knob and turned, pushing the door open and closing it behind himself when he got inside. TThe room was nice and warm, a drastic change from the temperatures outside, that had to be at least below 0 (F). Now, in this room, it was at least 70. Kurama was sure that even if the room had been 20 degrees, it would have felt about 100 degrees warmer that it was outside in the wind and snow.

By the time he'd warmed up and gotten his key from the table in the center of the room, Vash, Miroku, Inuyasha, Saitou, Kenshin, and Hiko were all in the room. Inuyasha and Miroku, being barefooted (or wearing sandals), were probably the coldest of them all. They sat there shivering for at least twenty minutes before even considering getting up. By then, Aoshi, Sesshoumaru, Wolfwood, Sano, and Yusuke had all arrived. Kurama looked around. One key remained on the center table, and he noticed somebody was missing.

"Where's Hiei?" he asked suddenly. Everybody looked around.

"Hiei's last? He's got to be the fastest. How could he be last?" Yusuke asked. Everybody was slightly worried or confused. There was no sign of him for another fifteen minutes. Suddenly, the last door, the red one, opened, and Hiei walked casually in, surrounded by an aura of fire. He was whistling casually and had a little fireball balanced on the tip of his finger, which he was absentmindedly spinning in a circle, leaving a little trail of fire behind it.

He glanced around, casually strolled over to the table, picked up the red key, looked at both sides of it, stuck it in his pocket, and walked back outside, either completely oblivious to or ignoring all the dumbfounded stares he was getting.

"What _is_ he?!" somebody finally asked. Everybody's attention was drawn to Aoshi. It seemed that whenever he talked, everybody got completely silent, because it was such a rare thing. Boy, they'd be surprised if Sesshoumaru talked. I don't think he's said a word since he ended up there.

Before anybody could answer, there was a huge explosion outside and Hiei came flying _through the door (the actual door, not the doorway) and tumbled backwards before finally coming to a stop, flat on his back, still surrounded by flames._

"He's a demon, obviously," Sesshoumaru answered. Inuyasha glared.

"A demon, huh? Well I guess I should have known. He smells like one."

"Huh?" Hiei said, clueless. He realized everybody was staring at him, especially Kenshin's group, Vash, and Wolfwood, who'd probably never seen a demon before in their lives. The next thing he realized was that he was surrounded by an aura of flames. It quickly vanished, as did the slight glow that had been unnoticed on his forehead by everyone but Kurama and Yusuke.

The startled group looked from Hiei, still sprawled spread-eagle on the ground, to the hole in the door, through which flames and ashes could be seen.

"What did you do?" Hiko asked, awestruck.

"Blew it up."

"The maze?"

"Hai."

"How?"

"Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!" Hiei said, forming the little fireball on his fingertip and swirling it around again. "I like blowing stuff up."

"Oh no," Kurama muttered. Everybody turned their heads in unison to look at him. It actually looked kinda funny, ten people all turning their heads at the same time.

"What now?" Aoshi asked. It seemed he'd given up on complete antisocialism and was talking in two and three-word sentences. Big step forward.

"Hiei, come here," Kurama ordered. The little demon looked up from where he was _still lying on his back on the floor._

"Why?"

"Just, come here."

Hiei got up and stood in front of Kurama. After a second of inspecting his friend, Kurama slapped him across the face.

"GET OVER IT."

Hiei blinked, looking startled. He rubbed his cheek.

"Itai..." he muttered.

"No more explosions."

"Awwww..."

"Congratulations, guys! All of you completed it within the time limit!" the girl's voice said suddenly. "Though Hiei placed last, we gave him some bonus for his skills with fire, then deducted some points for BLOWING UP OUR MAZE!!!" The girl broke down, sobbing hysterically. Hiei quirked an eyebrow.

"Can I go home now?" he asked.

"NO!"

"Damn."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Oh, I suppose I gave a bit of a wrong definition on –dono. Somebody told me, then I looked back at my definition and voila, that person was right (thank you… I'm too lazy to look at reviews for your name. Sorry.). So –dono is equal to like… My lord/my lady…


	7. In which a lot of insanity happens

**CHAPTER SIX**

In which a lot of insanity happens. A **_lot_** of insanity.

"Shadow Jaganshi, wake up this instant."

Shadow's left eye popped open. It darted around. She realized she was still lying on the floor where she had fallen asleep earlier, after Eclipse had dragged her back in after she'd tried to eat the family on the sidewalk.

"Wooooooooo," Shadow said, looking up at teen Koenma. Koenma _always_ appeared in teen form around Shadow. If he didn't, he knew he would be insulted and ridiculed until he killed her. And besides, not only was he taller and seemed more fitting for the role of Prince of Reikai, but he was a lot more attractive in that form.

Suddenly, Shadow lunged up and latched onto his neck.

"Shadow, get off me. Right now, before I completely give up on any plans I might have had to find your precious Hiei," Koenma said. Shadow let go so fast she barely got her feet under her, lost her balance, and fell backwards. Koenma laughed.

"_My precious Hiei_, huh? What, you don't care if you get back you precious spirit detectives from the grips of people in 2010?" Shadow asked, standing up and dusting herself off. 

"Who says they're in anyone's grips?" Koenma asked.

"Dude, people don't just vanish from my living room without a cause, and as far as I know, if a temporal anomaly opened up, it wouldn't pick and choose, it would have taken all of us, no matter how strong or how smart or what sex we are. So what are your plans?" Shadow asked.

"Did I say I had any plans? No. I said any plans I might have had," Koenma said. Shadow glared.

"Well, Koenma, I suggest you come up with a plan before I do, cuz if I come up with a plan it'll involve me, a time portal of some sort, my katana, and nobody else. In other words, I'll find a way to go into the future, I'll go into the future with my katana, and hack some people up," Shadow said.

"You're a half breed fire youkai, aren't you?" Koenma asked.

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Just answer me."

"Yes, I am. Now what has that got--"

"Even though you're a half breed, I believe it is still against Reikai laws to take human life. Pure youkai aren't allowed, therefore why should you be a special case?"

"Oh, what, so you're saying that if I go hack up some future people, that you'll throw me in Reikai prison?"

"Yes."

"You're just afraid that I'll save them and get all the credit."

"No I'm not."

"Prove it."

"Fine. Save them without my help. See if I object," Koenma said, shrugging. Then he promptly vanished.

"Fine. Save them without my help. Meh meh meh, lil' fag," Shadow mocked. Then she yelled at the ceiling, "FINE, I WILL!" and went to work. In the kitchen. Making a sandwich.

How very devoted she is, ne?

Eclipse walked in.

"What are you doing?" she asked. Shadow handed her a plate with a sandwich on it.

"Eat this for me. I'm too busy to eat right now," she said, running down the hall and up the stairs.

"What the heck?" Eclipse muttered. She set the sandwich on the sink and ran down the hall after Shadow. "Why are you so busy you can't eat?"

"Because _I_ am saving Hiei."

"Oh really," Eclipse said skeptically. "And how are you doing that?"

"If I told you, it wouldn't be a secret."

"... You never said it was a secret in the first place."

"I didn't? Oh. Well in that case, I don't know yet. I have to make a time machine," Shadow said. She was digging through a walk-in broom closet at the end of the hall. A broom closet without brooms, that never had brooms, and until Shadow moves out, never will have brooms. At the moment, it was piled up with boxes of various collections Shadow had made. All the boxes were labeled on every side in German with permanent black marker.

"Ah," Eclipse said, staring at the German words.

"It's actually not all that complicated. I just have to make a flux capacitator, and get one of those cool silver DeLorean cars, and hook the flux capacitator to the engine, and whenever you hit 88 miles per hour, SHI-POW! Into the future I go. Of course, I'd have to also make the little thingy that you set to tell you when you'll end up..." Shadow said, digging through a box of Furbies.

"A flux capacitator? And... how are you gonna make one of those?"

"Well, first I have to fall off the toilet and hit my head, and the vision will come to me," Shadow said, pulling out a black Furbie and putting it in an empty box. Eclipse stared at her like she was insane. 

"Um... how is falling off the toilet gonna help? Why the toilet? Why not a chair?" she asked her friend, who was now digging through a box of what appeared to be cookbooks.

"Because that's what the movie said," Shadow answered, shoving the cookbooks aside and grabbing another box.

"Why are those labeled in a foreign language?" Eclipse asked, changing the subject as she tried to read the writing.

"It's German."

"... Can you read it?"

"Of course I can, dorkus! Why would I label them in some language I don't understand?"

"Because you're you. You do stupid things like that sometimes," Eclipse said. She blinked. "What movie said something about falling off toilets?"

"_Back to the Future_!"

"What's that... some cheesy Sci-Fi movie?"

"NO NO NO NO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"

Shadow jumped out of the closet, abandoning her box of empty medicine bottles, and proceeded to go into great detail about the plots and events of all three _Back to the Future_ movies. Eclipse actually couldn't care less, and thought she tried to interrupt Shadow to inform her of this several [hundred] times, the girl was on a roll and wasn't gonna shut up without the friendly assistance of a roll of duct tape.

Finally, she got to the end of the third movie when, "The dude shows up on the train and has some kids with him along with his wife and... and... and... The kids are named Jules and Verne because those two were like... Jules Verne-a-holics, and... and..." 

She stopped and doubled over his her hands on her knees gasping for breath. She'd talked so fast, it probably could have been certified as a foreign language.

"Okay? They're good movies. You'll have to watch them sometime. But not now, because that explanation took up half an hour of my precious time to rescue Hiei! And Kurama! And I suppose Yusuke, too," Shadow said (if she talked so fast it was like another language, for half an hour, imagine how many words she said... She must have gone into a lot of detail... quoting and acting it out and everything). She dove back into the closet and started digging through the box of medicine bottles throwing them over her shoulders and occasionally hitting Eclipse.

"Look, Shadow," she said, dodging a bottle, "I'm gonna get some sleep. See you later."

"Kay kay," Shadow chirped, shoving the medicine bottles aside and tackling a box thoroughly sealed closed with duct tape. After a lot of growling and screaming, she managed to tear off the tape and open the box. She stared at the contents, first surprised, then a huge smile spread over her face.

"So _that's_ where he keeps those..."

"So you're a demon, huh?" Sano asked. They were back in their cages in the evil circular room of doom.

"Yes. Don't make a big deal out of it," Hiei answered. "Pester Sesshoumaru about it. Or Kurama. They're demons too."

"What?! You're a demon too?!" Sanosuke said, staring at Kurama. The boy nodded.

"Yes. Sort of. It's too hard to explain."

"But... I thought demons were evil!"

"Who says we aren't?" Sesshoumaru asked. Hiei grinned evilly. Sano looked from one to the other, then let out a little whimper and sat down on the floor.

"Oh, honestly, Sanosuke, they're not going to kill you," Hiko said. Then he looked at the three demons again. "Are you?"

"No!" Kurama said. "At least... I'm not... But... I can't speak for Sesshoumaru... and... Hiei won't listen to me if I... Wait! It's against Reikai rules for demons to kill humans. So of course we won't."

"You don't smell much like a demon, Kurama," Inuyasha said. "There's something different about you, but..."

"Like I said, it's hard to explain. I'm a spirit fox... in a human body."

"Soo... You possessed the human?"

"No. I _am_ the human. It's not a possession, it's permanent. Sort of."

"Sort of?"

"Why don't you just demonstrate?" Hiei suggested.

"What?! You mean just transform into Youko right here? Do you have any idea how those fan girls would react if they saw me?!" Kurama said, panicking.

"Oh yeah. Good point. Never mind. Do it some other time."

"Has anybody been keeping track of the time we've been here?" Aoshi asked. "And does anybody have any idea when they're going to let us out of here? I'm really rather sick of it, if truth be told."

"Aren't we all?" Yusuke said. "I have a girlfriend at home who is gonna kill me when I tell her some fanatics kidnapped me and brought me into the future..."

"You could lie, Yusuke," Hiei suggested. "She wouldn't know the difference."

"Not immediately, but if she ever found out I lied to her... My face would be one giant welt."

"Pathetic," Sesshoumaru muttered.

Meanwhile, over in the corner (of a circular room??), Miroku was meditating, Vash was sleeping and dreaming about eating donuts, and Wolfwood was really wishing he had quit smoking a long time ago, like... the second he started, so he wouldn't be going through withdrawal now. Saitou was just as miserable. Kenshin and Hiko were just sitting there listening to the conversations, but they were quickly unoccupied as everybody lapsed into silence again.

Meanwhile, back in the broom closet... literally...

"Let's see... ECLIPSE!!!" Shadow screamed. A second later, the girl walked out of the living room, grumbling and mumbling and yawning.

"What the...?"

"Do you think I could make a time machine?" Shadow asked.

"Shadow?"

"Yes?"

"No, I don't think you could make a time machine. Not if you were planning on using that pile of junk."

"JUNK!? Not junk! This is countless hours and days and weeks and months of gathering! I'm about to sacrifice hundreds of precious items to make a time machine! A black Furbie! Three forks and a spoon! Hearts, stars, and horseshoes! And a red balloon!" she said, grabbing each item as she said it.

"Dude. You're gonna use Lucky Charms to make a time machine?"

"Dude, no. And look at this! 'How to Make gourmet meals out of ROADKILL'! This is precious, man! Do you know how many dead things I find around here? This could be useful!" She threw the book off to one side and started digging through the pile. "And... and... An empty Tylenol bottle! I mean, seriously! A SHOEBOX! Shoeboxes are _priceless_. Coat hangers! _A deflated soccer ball!_ This stuff is what astronauts used to make science projects in fifth grade!"  

"Dude. You're not an astronaut, you're not in fifth grade, and this is not a science project," Eclipse tried to explain.

"Dude, look at this! AN ECONOMY-SIZED BOX OF DUCT TAPE! THERE'S 30 ROLLS IN THIS! And... What's left of Barney after I told him the weasels wanted to be his friends! This stuff could make me a fortune on eBay! I'll sell it and _buy_ a time machine!" Shadow said. "But not the Furbie. The Furbie stays. The Furbie is my friend." She chucked the Furbie at the wall and it cracked into a million pieces.

"NOO! TALK! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO TALK, DAMMIT! NOT BREAK!" she screamed, kicking the remnants of the Furbie around in the hallway. "I HAD FAITH IN YOU! YOU WERE GOING TO GO FAR IN THIS WORLD!" She broke down into hysterics. Eclipse wasn't sure whether she was faking it or not.

"Shadow?"

"MY FURBIE HAS FAILED ME! IT HAS FAILED ITSELF! IT HAS NOT COMPLETED ITS PURPOSE IN LIFE! WE MUST SACRIFICE IT TO THE GOD OF GREEN BANANAS!"

"Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..."

"QUICK! PREPARE THE ALTER, LACKEY! I MUST GATHER THE REMAINS!"

"You spelled 'altar' wrong, retard."

"WHO CARES! IT SOUNDS THE SAME! PREPARE IT!" Shadow screamed, grabbing a dustpan and a broom and gathering the remains of the Furbie (I said the broom closet didn't have brooms, I didn't say there were no brooms in the house).

"Um... Do you even have an altar around here anywhere?" Eclipse asked. Shadow froze.

"No! I'd better build one quick, or the God will be displeased!" As she ran down the hall, Eclipse slammed her in the back of the head with a broom.

"SHADOW! Calm down! We don't have to sacrifice anything! We have to build a time machine, remember?" she said. Shadow rubbed her head, walked back to the closet, and went inside. A few seconds later, things started flying out of it. Eclipse assumed Shadow had gone back to searching for construction materials.

"IT'S A GIANT LLAMA!" Shadow screamed suddenly, running out of the closet with something tiny in her hand. "ONLY REALLY SMALL!"

Eclipse flung a baseball bat and Shadow and smashed her in the center of her forehead. The girl fell over and the tiny giant llama fell out of her hand. It turned out it was a 3-inch-high plastic toy. The entire floor was covered in little plastic toys. Eclipse looked in the closet and saw two boxes open: One full of little plastic toys, the other full of magic 8-balls.

"Giant spitting llamas... hamster sized," Shadow mumbled. Her eyes snapped open and she jumped back into the closet, pulling down another box. This one she tore open to reveal voodoo dolls, crystal balls, and ouigie (weegee) boards.

"This is my collection of fortune-telling devices," Shadow explained.

"Voodoo dolls don't tell fortunes," Eclipse said.

"No, but they hurt people, and that's cool."

"Do they actually work?"

"I haven't tested them. Give me your bracelet," Shadow said. Eclipse was wearing a thin metal beaded bracelet. She handed it to Shadow, who looped it around the doll's neck, then dropped the doll on the ground.

"Feel anything?"

"No, not really," Eclipse said. "Should I?"

Shadow picked up the doll and squeezed it slightly. "Anything now?"

"Sort of..."

"Now?" Shadow asked, shaking the doll around.

"Yes, okay, they work! Stop before I throw up!"

"Woohoo!" Shadow squealed, taking off the little bracelet and handing it back to Eclipse. "There you go. Hm... These could be useful... I'll have to keep those in an easy access area."

"Like where?"

"Like my room!" Shadow said, grabbing the box and running up to her room. Eclipse stared after her, then looked at the boxes in the broom closet. One was full of books. There was a large one with huge pink writing on a black spine that said "HOW TO BUILD A TIME MACHINE." Her jaw dropped.

"Oh God, that girl is incompetent," she muttered, grabbing the book.

Meanwhile, in the happy pink room that was neither happy nor pink...

"... And that is why Furbies and Microsoft are at war in the land of gummy bears," Hiei said. It was an interesting new twist on, "I have no idea what you're talking about."

Kurama, Miroku, Vash, Hiko, and Aoshi had just had a very long, profound discussion on time travel. Everybody had had a few comments to throw in here and there, but those five had been the main conversationalists. Yes, Aoshi had had a big part in the conversation. Like I said earlier, or in the last chapter, he seemed to be getting over complete antisocialism.

Kurama smiled at Hiei's comment.

"Well, did we come to any conclusions that might help us get out of here? That conversation lasted at least an hour," Miroku said. "We've got to have _something_." 

"Even if we knew how to build a time machine, I don't think we could. Not while we're stuck in here," Kurama said.

"Man, this bites!" Yusuke complained. "We can't do _anything_! I can only think of one person who might be able to help us is Koenma! For all we know, he doesn't even know we're gone. And he'd have no way of tracking us if he did, would he? He can't time travel!"

"Well, he's supposedly the 'almighty' Koenma. He thinks he's so great, he should be able to help," Hiei said. "And the only way he could not know we were gone would be if something happened to Shadow, too."

"Which we all know you can't bear to think about," Sano said. "Something happening to your precious Shadow."

Hiei flipped Sano off. "Shut up, baka."

"Aww, he's not denying it!"

"Unless you want some part of your body to go missing, I suggest shut up."

"Go missing?"

"In other words, shut your pie hole before I feed you your heart."

"Errgh..." Sano said, sounding disgusted.

"Hiei, is there any need to be so violent?" Kenshin asked.

"Yes."

"I don't think there really is..."

"Yes there is."

"Why?"

"Just because you don't like it," Hiei said, smirking.

"Oh, I give up," Kenshin groaned, sweatdropping. Kurama grinned. Suddenly, a voice came over the intercom. One of the annoying girls.

"READY FOR CHALLENGE NUMBER THREE YET, GUYS?!"

"I swear to God, I'm going to start fearing the female gender," Yusuke muttered.

"NO WE ARE NOT, SO SCREW OFF!" Hiei screamed.

"Too bad!" the girl retorted. They were transported into the white room. It dematerialized.

"I hope you still have your keys," the girl's voice said as a new room appeared. Not so much a room, really, than a hallway. "Fine the matching door. Open it, and find the keys inside for the doors and compartments. You'll need to open all of them, but I suggest opening the second door last. Ready, go."

I'm getting sick of the word meanwhile...

"Hey Shadow!" Eclipse called, walking down the hall towards her friend's room. "I think I found something that could help!" She walked into the room and found Shadow playing with the evil ouigie (weegee) board.

"Are you an evil ouigie board?" Shadow asked. She put her hands on the little thingy that moves around. Eclipse stood above her and watched the thing spell out 'yes.' Shadow let out a squeal. "Yes! Evil ouigie board of doom, grant me a wish!"

"What's your problem?" Eclipse asked. Shadow shushed her as the board spelled out, "I don't grant wishes. Screw off."

"WELL FINE!" Shadow screamed, kicking the board. It went flying out the window. "You were saying?"

"I found this book," Eclipse said, holding up the time traveling machine book.

"That's not gonna help us. Did you look at it?" Shadow said.

"No," Eclipse replied honestly. She opened it and looked inside. It was a picture book with a few words and arrows. The first page had a picture of a boy with silvery-purple hair. It had an arrow pointing to it that said, "Trunks, son of Vegeta. 1/2 Saiyan." The next page had a picture of a little pod looking thing. It had an arrow pointing to it that said, "Trunks' time machine. Fully operational." The next page had two empty outlines running with an arrow pointing to them that said, "You." And the page after that had the two outlines carrying away the time machine, and it said, "You, carrying away Trunks' fully operational time machine to help save your oh-so-wonderful friends who were transported six years into the future."

"What the hell?" Eclipse said, staring at it. She turned the page. There was a picture of a very angry-looking 1/2 Saiyan, son of Vegeta, named Trunks, chasing after two outlines that were carrying away his fully operational time machine.

"That's not what it said last time I looked at it," Shadow mumbled, snatching the book. She flipped a few pages ahead and started reading. "Well according to this, somewhere in the world there's this Saiyan dude with a time machine. Let's go."

"Go where? On some search to find some guy we know nothing about who probably doesn't even exist?"

"No, retard! To Koenma's! We're gonna find out if he exists," Shadow said, slamming the book shut and tucking it under her arm as she walked out the door. Eclipse ran after her.

"You're suddenly serious."

"I'm _always_ serious."

"... That's not how it looks from my point of view. Anyway, what the heck did you mean when you said, 'That's not what it said last time I looked at it'?"

"I meant exactly that. Last time I looked at it, it said, 'You don't need this book yet.'"

"Shadow, is everything in this house possessed?"

"Possessed? Of course not. Why would you say that?"

"No, I mean, do you have anything _normal_ in this house?"

"Sure! I'm here, aren't I?" Shadow chirped, posing and batting her eyebrows. Eclipse sighed.

"I rest my case."

"I don't see a case. Where is it resting?"

"You know... You were serious for about two seconds... Now you're back to dancing down the hall."

And Shadow was doing exactly that. She hadn't even waited for an answer after she had asked about the resting case. She had just asked, then started dancing down the hall and singing.

"TO KOENMA'S!" she yelled, pointing up, then running down the hall and out the door.

"Yeah, let's just hope he'll help... You did say you'd do this all by yourself!" Eclipse said as she caught up to her.

"If he doesn't help, I'll tell his father he's abandoning his spirit detectives. He'll straighten up real quick," Shadow answered, smirking. 

And they were off to see the prince, the wonderful prince of Reikai... Who isn't actually so wonderful, but if you didn't catch it, I was singing the Wizard of Oz there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, disclaimers. I don't own Furbies (I don't even own _a_ Furbie, never have, but you know what I mean. No copyrights are owned by me.), I don't own the copyrights to Back to the Future, though I own the movies, I don't own Lucky Charms, I don't own... Dragonball Z (thanks by the way to Serenitystone, who suggested that. I was in severe need of ideas. Putting DBZ in it will be fine, though it's not my favorite anime or anything… I think she suggested something else I used in one of my other stories too… The Work Sucks story… Was that you? ^_^ Bad memory. You know.)... I don't own... anything else I mentioned in this chapter... or this story... or any of my stories for that matter... that's copyrighted. I own Shadow and everything that is completely made up out of my mind. ^_^ Oh, Eclipse belongs to my best friend... Well... We sort of have a shared ownership on her... WHATEVER. It's not important. Anyway... ^_^ Sayonara until the next chapter. OH. Any errors in this chapter are because I didn't proof read it. I have a bad habit of not proofreading things unless it's a weekend (which it is currently Thursday).


	8. In which I use a lot of words to talk ab...

**WARNING: LONG CHAPTER. 4,940 WORDS. FEAR. MY. WRATH. OF. INSANITY. AND. RANDOMNESS. AND RAMBLING. AS SUCH. I AM NOW.**

**CHAPTER SEVEN**

In which I use a lot of words to talk about almost absolutely nothing.

"What was it she said? Open the door _after_ opening all the other things in the room?" Sano said out loud to no one in particular. Of course, he had gone straight to the door. In front of him stood an enormous... something. It was some kind of demon human bear frog creature. He looked at it. It looked at him. He regretted having opened the door. He turned around, but the door had closed itself.

"Do your best, Sano. We'll pull you out if it gets too hairy," a girl said over the intercom.

"Yeah, thanks a lot!"

"Don't say we didn't warn you."

Sano looked at the hairy frog human monkey creature thing and blinked. It blinked back. He waved. It didn't have any front arms or feet to wave with, so it blinked again. He flipped it off with both hands. Once again, no hands, so it just blinked again. Sano belched really loud. Now that was something this thing could do. It belched so loud dust fell from the ceiling as its voice cracked the plaster stuff. And it stank. It smelled absolutely awful. Like rotten eggs that had been mixed with dog farts. Sano was on the verge of throwing up.

Meanwhile, Hiei was having a bit more luck. He had opened three out of the five compartments, found a sword, a surgical mask, and a package of Hot Fudge Sundae Poptarts. After the Poptarts, he'd said, "Screw this, this is gay," and went on to the door. He opened it and found a giant who-knows-what staring back at him.

Imagine a creature the size of an elephant with butterfly wings (actual size), horse hooves on its back legs, rabbit ears, dragon tail, wolf back legs, eagle's head... human arms... Human arms holding a battle-axe. Hiei stared at it. He'd seen plenty of ugly things in his life, but this was by far the ugliest. Yes, it was worse than Kuwabara.

"Sick! Where the hell did these girls get this stuff?" he asked himself. "I guess the challenge is to kill it?"

"Exactly! Hit it right in the forehead, Hiei!" a girl said over the intercom.

"Oh. Okay." Hiei did exactly that. He cracked the thing right in the middle of its eagle head, and it fell over dead.

"Oh damn. I mixed that up with that saying, what is it? Hit the nail right on the head? Well I guess you win this challenge. Do you want to keep those Poptarts?"

"What? No."

"Okay!"

Next thing Hiei knew, he was standing in front of a wall of monitors. The rest of the guys were displayed on the screens. He found Kurama, Yusuke, Saitou, and Sanosuke. Sano was fighting the ugliest, smelliest-looking thing Hiei had ever seen. Kurama was opening drawers in a room. Yusuke was fighting a midget on a pogo stick, which, if you think about it, is kind of freaky. And Saitou was fighting something that strongly resembled a giant egg. With feet. Hiei stared at the screens.

"This is fucked up," is all he could think to say.

"Hiei! Watch your language!" the girl beside him said, smacking some duct tape over his mouth. He pulled it off and stuck it in her hair, watching the screens to see who would come in second place, ignoring her screams as she whined about messing up her perfect hairdo.

"Shut up!" Hiei snapped. Kurama was now opening the door. Inside the room was...

A pigeon.

Oh yes. Pigeons are evil. They're evil evil bad birdies. They poop on cars and eat the old ladies who feed them in the park. Kurama had every right to promptly slice the bird in two, which he did after Hiei found the right button and said, "Hey Kurama, the challenge is to kill whatever you find in that room. So if you had found a little pink Wal-Mart smiley, you would have had to kill it. Fry the birdie."

Of course, slicing a bird in half isn't exactly frying it, but it's close enough. It dies either way. A second after the pigeon was in shreds on the floor, Kurama appeared beside Hiei in front of the screens.

"Oh. Hello," he said.

"I'm first. You're second. I have a feeling Aoshi is gonna be third."

"Why is that?"

"Look."

Aoshi was fighting a human boy. He looked to be about sixteen or seventeen with brown hair and the startings of a moustache and beard. He was standing there smiling really stupidly while Aoshi paced circles around him with his two kodachi unsheathed, one in each hand.

"What kind of lunatics would make him kill a teenager?" Kurama asked, stunned.

"Those kind," Hiei said, pointing at the girls who were also watching the monitors. He stepped forward and hit the button to talk into Aoshi's room. "Aoshi! Just kill the stupid kid already. You have a chance to come in third."

Aoshi looked startled, but he attacked and in a second the kid was lying in pieces on the floor. Aoshi appeared beside Kurama. His white coat had a few spatters of blood on it, but otherwise he looked fine.

"You're third," Hiei said.

"Who ever gave you permission to run this place, Hiei?" one girl asked. "Stop giving advice!"

"Shut up, baka! I'm sick of being here. If I help them, then we'll get this crap over with faster, and I'll get out faster. Hopefully."

"Hiei, look," Kurama said. He was pointing at one of the monitors. Hiei and Aoshi walked over and watched Yusuke, who was getting squished into the ground by the midget on a pogo stick. 

"Interesting," Aoshi said, his eyebrows raised curiously.

A second later, Kenshin and Hiko appeared. Fourth and fifth. Then Vash, Wolfwood, Inuyasha, and eventually everybody had appeared except Yusuke. He was still being pogo-sticked to death.

"Just transport him out," Hiei said dryly. "He's never gonna get up."

With a sigh, the girl hit a button and Yusuke appeared on the floor covered in little circles. It looked painful.

"Line up side by side!" one girl ordered. The guys obeyed, and the girl walked over with some little device. Hiei, first in the line, looked at it suspiciously.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Something," the girl answered. She hit a button and a beam of light shot out, as wide as Hiei. She ran it down from the tips of his hair to his feet. She moved to Kurama and repeated it. Next she moved to Saitou. He had been fighting a giant egg, remember. She ran the light beam down him and the egg splatters vanished from his clothes. He quirked an eyebrow.

"What was that?"

"Particle beam," the girl answered. She moved down the line, healing and tidying up each of the guys in turn. Then they promptly vanished and reappeared back in their cells.

"At least we got to fight," Sano said dryly from beside Hiei.

"All I got to do was punch some creature in the head," Hiei answered dryly.

"I had to fight an egg," Saitou said coldly. "It's degrading."

"At least you didn't get beat up by a midget on a pogo stick," Hiei said, loud enough Yusuke could hear.

"Shut up, Hiei! That midget was possessed!"

"So? You've killed demons before! Surely a midget on a pogo stick isn't much of a challenge!"

Yusuke grumbled.

"Boo hoo," Hiei taunted, fake-sniffling. Yusuke stalked over to Hiei's cage and stuck his face up to the bars.

"Shut up, Hiei, before I hurt you."

"You can't reach me," Hiei said, smirking.

"That's why I have a spirit gun! I don't _have_ to reach you!"

"That's why I _dodge_," Hiei said, glaring. Yusuke had a lot of nerve.

"You can't dodge too well in that little cage! It'd be simple for me to fry you right now!"

"Shut up, Urameshi! You want me to break your face?"

Meanwhile, Kurama realized that the tensions of being cramped in a room with no exits or windows was taking its toll on everybody. He and Kenshin hurried over to Yusuke and Hiei. Hiei was now pulled up against the bars on his cage by Yusuke, who had a fistful of the front of Hiei's shirt.

"Shut up, shorty!"

"Hit me. I dare you," Hiei hissed.

Before Yusuke could move, Kurama put a hand on his shoulder.

"Calm down, Yusuke. Look who you're fighting! You're fighting your friend. Those girls are getting to all of us, but we shouldn't flip out like this. Calm down."

"Shut up, Kurama," Yusuke said, glancing back at him. Hiei took this opportunity and punched Yusuke hard in the face, knocking him out cold and sending him flying backwards. The boy landed a halfway across the room between Wolfwood and Hiko, who barely glanced at him.

"Hiei!" Kenshin said, horrified.

"That's my name."

"Why did you do that?!"

Hiei sighed. "It's obvious. He needed to cool off, and unconsciousness is the best place to do that."

There was a short silence before Sano interrupted it, plopping down with a loud thud and whining, "I wanna go home!"

"For once I agree with the moron," Saitou said dryly. Sano's eyes snapped open.

"Really? I never thought I'd see the day!"

"We all want to go home," Wolfwood said. 

"Let's rebel," Inuyasha suggested.

"Let's kill them all," Hiei added.

"No!!!" Vash and Kenshin whined. Hiei sighed.

"Whatever."

"But I agree that we rebel," Vash said.

"I think we should kill them," Sesshoumaru said.

"Onegai! Iie!" Kenshin whined.

"Well we _are_ going to escape," Hiei said. "Because there's no way we can know if anyone we know knows where we are."

"Nani? Run that by me again. You said 'know' too much," Sano said cluelessly.

"Ahou," Saitou sighed.

"I said that we will escape, because we don't know if anyone knows where we are. Get it?" Hiei said dryly.

"Hai. I think so."

"Good."

"So what's your plan?"

"Anou..."

"You _do_ have a plan, don't you?" Sano asked suspiciously.

"Of course! One of the first things I learned about life is to always have a plan," Hiei said, his eyes carefully avoiding Sano's.

"So what's your plan?"

"I don't have a plan."

"Nani!" Sanosuke said, falling over.

"Wait! I have one! Here's my plan: Let's ask Kurama for a plan!" Hiei said. Everybody sighed, but looked at Kurama expectantly.

"Ask them," Kurama said, pointing at Hiko and Kenshin. 

"Why do we always have to be the ones with the plan? Baka!" Hiko complained. Everybody stared arguing over everything, and eventually it got to the point where they were blaming it on the position of Uranus relative to the core of Pluto divided by the sum of the distance from Earth to the Sun plus the square root of half of the speed of light, and according to Einstein's theory of relativity, energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. Of course, being as Einstein was born March 14th (my birthday too!), 1879, in Germany, on Earth, nobody but Hiei, Kurama, and Yusuke even had the vaguest idea who Albert Einstein was or what he did, so that settled the argument. They lapsed into silence. 

However a few minutes later, Hiei, sitting between Saitou and Sanosuke, felt like he was gonna burst into flames from the looks the two were giving each other. Who knows why, but they were shooting insults back and forth like they had been arguing for hours. Maybe they had, but it had gone unnoticed in the larger argument.

"Tori-atama," Saitou said.

"Ookami," Sano retorted.

"Arigatou, ahou," Saitou said, smirking.

"Bakayarou!"

"Kuso-atama," Saitou said. Sano's jaw dropped. Hiei snorted back laughter.

"Shimatta! Hiretsukan!" Sano whined.

"Gaki! Shuushi!" Kenshin snapped. Saitou glared. Sano just looked annoyed.

"Baka," Saitou said, sitting down. "You spoil my fun."

"Fun? Insulting Sanosuke is fun?" Hiei asked.

Saitou looked startled by the tone of Hiei's voice. "Actually, yes."

Hiei paused, looking horrified. Then a smile broke over his face. "Hai. It is." 

Saitou grinned at the crushed look on Sano's face. Hiei laughed. Sanosuke had been hoping that maybe Hiei had changed. Of course he hadn't.

"Guys, can't we just get along?" Vash whined.

"No!" Hiei and Saitou said simultaneously. 

"Haven't you asked that before?" Kurama asked.

"I think that was Kenshin."

"Whatever. Same question. And what was their answer then?" Kurama asked.

"No," Vash said miserably.

"Then why would that change?"

"It wouldn't."

"Good! Glad we understand each other, there, Needle noggin," Hiei said, having picked up the nickname from Wolfwood.

"Hey! That's my nickname for the idiot! Mine!" Wolfwood complained.

"Too bad."

"Too bad? All rights reserved! Back off! Mine!"

Hiei gave up and sat down.

The room lapsed into silence, more or less. Miroku and Inuyasha were having a conversation, and Hiko, Kenshin, and Kurama were having a conversation, but everybody else was sitting, staring, sleeping, and other such things that begin with "s."

Meanwhile, in Reikai... 2004...

"Oh, Ko-ennnnnnnnnnnnnma!" Shadow sang, walking into Koenma's office. "I need to ask you something!"

"Not now, Shadow! Can't you see I'm busy?" Koenma said. Shadow noticed a teenage silver-purple haired boy standing in front of Koenma's desk.

"Who's that?" Shadow asked. She walked up and got close to the boy's face. "Have we met before? You look familiar."

"Shadow, leave!" Koenma snapped.

"Do me a favor first. We need to find a half-Saiyan named Trunks... Could you help us?" Shadow asked.

"No, I most definitely cannot," Koenma said stiffly.

"I'm Trunks... Why am I suddenly so popular?" the boy said. 

"Where is your time machine?" Shadow asked, grabbing Trunks's collar with both hands and pulling his face down to her level. "TELL ME OR DIE!"

"It's..."

"Nowhere! Go away!" Koenma yelled. Suddenly, Shadow and Eclipse fell and landed hard on their butts. They looked around and found themselves... somewhere... in the middle of a city with strange futuristic-looking buildings and cars, and yet... people were walking dinosaurs on leashes.

"What the fuck?!" Shadow yelped.

Back in Reikai, Koenma was cursing and screaming: "I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON! I HIT THE WRONG BUTTON!!!"

"Let me see that book," Eclipse said, snatching the _How to Build a Time Machine_ book out of Shadow's hand.

"Look at this," she said. "It's _different_. It's showing... this city. There's an arrow pointing..." She paused. "... this way!" She pointed to her left and walked that way without looking up, and promptly slammed into a wall.

"There's a building there," Shadow said. She walked to the door. "There's no doorknob!"

"Try this," Eclipse said, pushing a button. "It's an intercom."

"Who's there?" came a man's voice.

"We're mechanics!" Shadow chirped quickly. "We're here to work on Trunks's time machine!"

"Does it need work?"

"Yes! Yes, it most definitely does!" Shadow said.

"Did he call you?"

"Of course he did! What did you think we did? Appear out of thin air in the front lawn?"

"No, of course not. Come in," the man's voice said. A second later the door slid open. Shadow led Eclipse inside. Just inside the door, they nearly ran into a man wearing full-body Spandex, boots, and gloves.

"Direct us in the general direction of the time machine!" Shadow ordered, standing up tall and proud.

"That way," the man said, pointing. "Where are your tools?"

"Right here!" Shadow said, kicking him in the crotch and taking off running.

"Shadow! What the hell was that for?" Eclipse yelled as she ran after her friend.

"We're thieves! What do you expect us to do? Just leave him unharmed and use cunning and trickery to steal it?"

"Yes! That's exactly what I expect, and you were doing fine until you had to go and whack that guy in the nuts!"

"I prefer brawn over brains! In case you couldn't tell, I'm not too high on the brains department," Shadow said. They ran through a door and ended up in a little room with the time machine they'd seen in the book.

"Here it is. I don't suppose you know how to drive it?" Eclipse said.

"No. That's why I have the 'Driving Stolen Time Machines. For Dummies. Edition 1' in my hand," Shadow chirped, climbing into the cockpit. "All aboard!"

With a sigh, Eclipse hauled herself up into the cockpit beside Shadow.

"Let's see here..." Shadow said, looking over the controls.

Spandex-man was suddenly in the doorway.

"HEY! Get out of there! Trunks doesn't need a mechanic! He built that thing himself, he can fix it! Get out before I kill you!" 

"Shadow?!"

"I don't know how to work it!"

"Figure out! Hurry!"

"Ahm..."

"Shadow!! At least close the lid!"

"I DON'T KNOW HOW!" Shadow bellowed.

A second later, the two girls screamed in surprise, because the Spandex-man was suddenly floating in front of them.

"YOU CAN FLY?!"

"GET OUTTA THE COCKPIT!" Spandex-man snapped, forming up a ball of energy in his hand.

"Are you Vegeta?" Shadow asked abruptly.

"Of course, fool! Who did you think I was?" Spandex-man, a.k.a Vegeta, snapped.

"I thought you were President of the United States. So you're Trunks's father?" Shadow said, leaning forward a little bit.

"Yes," Vegeta answered, floating backwards a bit. The energy in his hand faltered.

"Ah. I guess you would be the one we would want to talk to, then," Shadow said, pulling herself out of the seat and perching on the edge of the cockpit.

"What? Shadow, what are you--" Eclipse started, but she was silenced by a quick kick to the side of the head. She slumped back in the seat, swirly-eyed.

"Talk to?" Vegeta asked, the energy in his hand shrinking down to barely anything. He floated back some more.

"We have Trunks."

"WHAT?!"

"Yeah. We kidnapped him," Shadow said. 

"What do you want with Trunks?"

"Oh, let's see... A lot of things. We could use him as breeding stock. We could use him for slave labor. We could power our entire colony with his energy. Half-Saiyans are amazing creatures," Shadow said. She's strange. Who the hell could think up all those things in a split second and act like they'd had them planned out for ages? She is a very good actress, I suppose.

Vegeta was fuming. Shadow could see his aura. She smiled innocently.

"All we ask for his return to you is this time machine," she said, smiling.

Vegeta was shaking with rage. He believed her. A thought came to him.

"How could some puny girls kidnap my son? He would easily fight you off!"

"First, it wasn't us in person. We gave the order. But our workers carried it out. Second, it would really be rather easy for a girl like me to kidnap any guy, even the strongest man in the world," Shadow said, smiling.

"Oh? How would you do that?" Vegeta snarled.

"_Seduction_," she replied, grinning evilly. Vegeta's eyes widened and he looked even more furious than before.

"Not all men are susceptible to women's charm."

"Heh heh heh. I haven't met a guy yet who I couldn't train to lick my boots," Shadow said, still grinning. Of course, she hasn't really tried that with too many guys... That we know of... Maybe she's doing objectionable things behind Hiei's back. Gasp!

"Oh yeah? Try it on me," Vegeta said. "I can hide any and all emotions. Nobody can manipulate me."

"You wish. I only seduce my victims and my chosen mates," Shadow said. Okay, this is getting freaky. "Of course, my chosen mates are usually in the victims category... BACK TO THE MATTER AT HAND... Are you willing to give us the time machine in return for your son?"

Just then, something happened that threw Shadow's acting and on the spot planning right out the window.

"Dad?!"

Vegeta jumped. "Trunks?"

"Oh, shit," Shadow muttered. Trunks appeared in the doorway.

"You?!" Trunks said, startled to see Shadow sitting on the cockpit of his time machine. "What are you doing here?"

"You escaped?" Vegeta asked, startled.

"Escaped? What are you talking about?"

"Shimatta... Time for Shadow to make her great escape," Shadow muttered, starting to slide back into the cockpit, hopefully unnoticed. Oops. 

"WHERE ARE YOU GOING?" Vegeta snapped, punching her right out of the cockpit and on to the floor at Trunks's feet.

"Kuso," Shadow whispered. She was now between Trunks and Vegeta. Neither looked too happy. After laying there for a few seconds, just long enough for Vegeta to reach her and think he had her, she leapt up and tore down the hall. Vegeta shot off after her, but Trunks noticed Eclipse was starting to regain her... normality. As in... blue eyes instead of swirlies... and conscious thought. She's never quite normal, by society's definition. Just like Shadow. Shadow is NEVER EVER even CLOSE to being SIMILAR to society's definition of normal.

"Shadow?" she said, looking around.

"What are you doing in my time machine?" Trunks asked.

"Oh, kuso," Eclipse muttered. "Did you already kill Shadow?"

"The twisted lunatic girl wearing black and carrying an oversized book everywhere with her? No. My father is after her right now."

As he said the words, a yell echoed up the hall.

"Don't shoot at me, fool! Haven't you ever heard 'never hit a lady'?!"

"Some lady you are!" came Vegeta's response. There was a thud and a second later Shadow tore across the hallway. Vegeta was close behind her.

"Ah."

"So what did you want with me?" Trunks asked.

"Well, we were gonna ask you nicely for your time machine, and when you said no, we would steal it and, and being as Shadow was the one with the instructions, when you got it back... _if_ you got it back, it would have been reduced to something that could fit in a shoebox," Eclipse said nervously.

"You were going to blow up my time machine?" Trunks asked, anger starting to show on his face.

"Yes, and if we can, we still need it."

"**In your dreams!**" Trunks snapped, lunging at Eclipse. The girl swung her legs over the edge of the cockpit, landed gracefully, and took off running as fast as she could (which, being half demon, was rather fast. But then, Trunks, being half-Saiyan, was rather fast too, and could fly). She tore off in the direction she'd seen Shadow going. Up ahead, the two, pursuer and pursued, were still visible. She shot after them.

A blast of energy hit the floor at her heels and she turned to see Trunks tearing after her shooting energy balls at her feet. She lunged into the nearest room she could find and leaned up against the door to keep it closed.

She must not think too well under pressure, because a second later, the door slid open. Sideways. She fell back and bumped into Trunks. She lurched forward and spun around.

"Oh. Crap," she said, getting slightly pale. In addition to energy bombs, Trunks now had spiky yellow hair and a good bit more energy. He charged at her. She dodged to one side and tore back out the door and down the hall after Shadow, as fast as she could run. In a couple minutes, she was a few feet behind Vegeta. She passed him. A second later, she was running side-by-side with Shadow, and Trunks was side-by-side with Vegeta.

"Hello!" Shadow said happily. Eclipse glanced at her and kept running. "Nice day for a high-speed chase, ne?"

Before Eclipse could say anything else, there was an explosion of energy at their heels and they sped up even more. Shadow glanced over her shoulder and grew pale.

"Quicken pace!" she yelled, calling on her fire demon speed. "He's got a sword!" She and Eclipse were now running so fast that even if they had wanted to stop, it would have taken a 5-foot-thick brick wall to do so. Or maybe ten gallons of elephant tranquilizers would have worked…

They had run through every hallway in Capsule Corp, and now they were tearing back towards the room housing the time machine.

"We're leaving!" Shadow said, running straight into the room and leaping into the time machine. Eclipse was right behind her. She pushed some buttons and the lid thing closed. They were sealed in the machine, and they knew the two men wouldn't attack them until they were out. They wouldn't damage the time machine. The time machine that the girls weren't getting out of, so they were safe.

"Shimatta!" Trunks cursed loudly. Shadow looked at the book in her lap for instructions and pushed d a few buttons. The machine's engines started and they lifted up off the ground. She hit a few more buttons and they started up. They crashed _through_ the ceiling and lifted up several yards above the roof.

"Now... How do we program what year we're going to?" Shadow asked herself, looking over the controls.

"Here's some numbers... Maybe that has something to do with it," Eclipse suggested.

"Let's see..." Shadow said, leaning over and looking at it. She pushed a few numbers in. Nothing happened. "I guess n--"

Before she could finish the sentence, the area around them seemed to dematerialize. It was replaced with wavy, floaty lines. Pigs flew outside their windows. Down below, Shadow saw a red man with a pitchfork wearing a thick fur coat and carrying a snow blower down some seemingly endless stairs. She stared at the guy's pointy tail until he vanished from sight.

"I just saw the devil."

"I just saw the Easter bunny and Santa Claus," Eclipse said, staring out the window with wide eyes. "Where are we?"

"I think... we're no where."

"What?"

"Um... There's a midget... on a pogo stick..."

"I think we're in another dimension... where the unknown... is known..." Eclipse said. Shadow looked at her in horror. "What?"

"You sounded _smart_! I'm scared! I guess the unknown really _is_ known!"

"Shut up!"

"Um... Let's try to get out of this dimension and into... 2010," Shadow said, looking over the controls.

"Wait... Didn't Koenma say that the time warp went to 1880, too?"

"I dunno. Did he?" Shadow said cluelessly, looking at the buttons and scratching her chin.

"My point is, shouldn't we go to 1880 and see if we can find out anything there?" Eclipse asked.

"Eclipse, have you noticed how smart you have been ever since Kurama and Hiei vanished? You've been calm, cool, and collected. Unlike me. I'VE BEEN BOUNCING OFF THE WALLS AND TALKING ABOUT FREEZE-DRIED SQUID!"

"Yes. I actually had noticed, but I decided that it would be okay, since you're being strange enough for about two hundred and thirty-four people," Eclipse said.

"Okay. Just wondering. Well, we might as well go to 1880. Anything is better than this place," Shadow said as the pogo-stick-midget floated by and three green monkeys wearing glasses rode by on winged unicycles.

"Good point," Eclipse said, watching as the monkeys morphed into evil flying Goatsheepwhales (you'd have to know me to understand the Goatsheepwhales thing... I am an Evil Flying Goatsheepwhale... Ruler of all Beans), and marshmallow clouds floated over the banana moon and started raining malted milk balls.

After a two-second analysis of the number buttons again, Shadow hit some and pushed a big blue button. The insane dimension of unknown vanished and in its place was a rather large forest. Shadow lowered the time machine to the ground and opened the lid.

"Well, I suppose this is 1880," she said, climbing out and hopping to the ground. Eclipse followed her as she walked into the forest.

"You know... We're in _1880_! Won't they notice a couple of teenage girls strolling down the streets in boots and belts and buckles? Didn't they all wear kimonos?"

"... Yeah. Well, we can just... hide...?"

"Do we even know what we're looking for?"

"No. We could go to the cops or something. Ask if anybody has vanished."

"Missing persons?" Shadow said. "Did they have missing persons in 1880?"

"I'm sure they did, Shadow. They just ended some war or something, didn't they? They had samurais and swords and--"

"Hold it right there!"

Shadow and Eclipse spun around and saw about a dozen scarcely dressed men with swords and daggers. Their jaws dropped.

"Kuso. This is great," Shadow whispered. "We're here for three minutes and we're already getting mobbed."

"What do you want?" Eclipse asked.

"What do you think we want from two little girls in the middle of the forest?" one asked, smiling cruelly and raising his dagger.

"Little? _Are you calling me little?_" Shadow asked coldly, narrowing her eyes. "You'd better watch how you treat ladies!"

"Ooh, I like 'em feisty!" another man said. "Let me handle this, boss."

"Handle, huh? Who are you twisted people?" Shadow asked, crossing her arms.

"We're just some local guys who want some fun."

One of the guys reached for Shadow. She hit his hand out of the way.

"You messin' wit me?" she snapped, narrowing her eyes. "_You messin' wit **me?**_** Do you know who I am!?**"

"No."

"Let's keep it that way." Shadow turned and started walking away. Several of the man lunged at her. She spun around and kicked one of them in the head. Boom. Fighting started. Eclipse punched guys left and right and sent them flying into trees. Shadow kicked guys, mostly in the groin and head. The two girls easily mauled all twelve armed men.

"Let's go!" Eclipse said. "Before they... die... or something..."

The two girls took off running through the forest. In 1880 Tokyo. _Near_ 1880 Tokyo, more like.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Evil Flying Goatsheepwhale. I am the creator. Do not steal. I will tell you. Last year, I thought I was fat. I thought I was a whale; hence "whale." Also, last year, I kept making strange farmyard animal noises, and my friends debated whether it was a goat or a sheep. I told them it's a Goatsheep. I settled it. Hence, "Goatsheep." "Evil"... is just cuz that's what I am. "Flying" is because I like things that fly. My mission over the summer between 7th and 8th grade was to find more goatsheepwhales. I failed miserably. *sob*

"Quicken pace" and "We're leaving" are quotes out of Sleepy Hollow. Sure, they could be from anywhere, but that's why they're there. That movie is awesome! It's got Johnny Depp in it (who my friend is obsessed with, but I **am not**), and a really awesome horse, and people get their heads lopped off, and it's rated R. For violence. Hee hee hee. I'm probably gonna have Pirates of the Caribbean quotes in the next chapter.

There was something else I was… Oh yeah! Aoshi's bishie challenge was to kill my sister's boyfriend. ^_^ And he succeeded. I hate my sister's boyfriend. He likes Aoshi, so it was just so fitting to have Aoshi kill him (I didn't remember that until I was proofreading…)


	9. In which they are rescued, people die, a...

**CHAPTER EIGHT  
**In which they are rescued, people die, and Shadow dances a lot

Shadow and Eclipse came to the outskirts of a city. They went through back alleys and the like to avoid lots of attention from random passers-by. Their plan was going amazingly well, considering Shadow thought it up. Or was it Eclipse? Who cares. It was going surprisingly well considering that anybody other than Kurama or similar genius thought it up.

Shadow and Eclipse stopped to take a rest in a small alley between two buildings.

"Shadow... I just realized... If we're trying to get to the police... Wouldn't it be best to change our clothes? I mean, we've been doing all this to avoid commoners' attention, but we're going to the police. Isn't that kind of stupid?"

"Stop thinking, Eclipse... It's hurting my brain," Shadow muttered. Suddenly, the door she'd been leaning on opened and she fell into the arms of...

A scary looking man with a sword.

She jumped up and put her back to the wall opposite him.

"What are two strangely dressed girls doing outside my back door?" he asked. Shadow didn't like his voice. It sounded evil.

"Is it such a crime?" Shadow asked.

"No. But it's dangerous. All sorts of people come and go through this door. You might meet some trouble sitting there. What is your business in this area of Tokyo?"

"We were actually looking for the police," Shadow said. "If you could point us in the right direction, I would be much obliged."

"The police? What would you want with those bakas?"

"We need help."

"Mental help," Eclipse added. Shadow kicked her hard in the leg and she went hopping around in circles yelping and holding her shin.

"Be quiet, girl!" the man snapped, clamping his hand over her mouth. She screeched and pulled away from him. This drew the attention of a young boy walking by on the street. He walked into the alley.

"What's going on here?" he asked. He was wearing a yellow top with green pants... things... whatever the hell those are called. Kimono... thing... Oo

"Absolutely nothing, and we were just leaving," Shadow said. She turned to walk away and ran into the freaky man. "Aye. Hello."

"What are you doing to these girls?" the little boy asked.

"Look, gaki, these girls were hanging around outside _my_ door. I have every right to do whatever I want with them," the man answered. "Trespassing on private property is punishable by law, is it not?"

"I know you! You're one of those men involved with that smuggling ring that was in the newspaper!" the kid said. Shadow and Eclipse exchanged glances, stared at the man, looked at the kid, and took off running out of the alley.

"Thanks for your help, kiddo!" Shadow shouted before turning the corner. The kid stared at the man and tore off after the two girls.

"What the heck are you doing?" he asked as he caught up to them.

"Running!" Shadow answered.

"Where is the police station?" Eclipse asked.

"Police? Come with me," the kid said. "I'm Yahiko Myoujin by the way."

"Shadow Jaganshi!"

"Eclipse Shinomori."

Yahiko stopped dead.

"Shinomori? No relation to Aoshi Shinomori, are you?"

"Who?"

"Aoshi Shinomori was the leader of the Tokyo Oniwaban group, but recently he vanished without a trace."

Shadow stared at him.

"Vanished? Did anybody else you know vanish?"

"... Yes... Two of my friends, Kenshin and Sanosuke, as well as Kenshin's master and his rival... enemy... nemisis person... Though I don't see why I should have told you. I don't even know you."

"You know our names," Eclipse said. "That should be enough."

"We have come to help you," Shadow said, looking all fluttery and glowy and stuff like she was an angel.

"I... uh... think you should talk to Kaoru. Come with me."

A few minutes later, Shadow and Eclipse were sitting in Kaoru's dojo. They found out that several people had vanished completely off the face of Tokyo.

"Ah. Well see, a few of my friends just vanished too, and that's what we're here for. We're looking for them. We know when they are," Shadow said.

"You know _when_ they are?" Yahiko said, staring. "Is that what you said?"

"Uh-huh. 2010."

"What? I don't know what you're trying to pull, but I'm not falling for it. I don't know why I just spilled my guts to two girls I just met, either. Get out of here!" Kaoru said.

"We're from 2004. We have contact with the son of the ruler of Reikai, and he can tell when there's been time travel, and there had been time travel. Believe me. I think you should come with us," Shadow said.

"I'm not going anywhere with you!" Kaoru said, but Shadow grabbed her and Yahiko and dragged them out the front door. As Shadow was heading out into the street, she bumped into a woman who stared at Kaoru like... well... she looked surprised.

"Kaoru, what is going on?" the woman asked.

"Megumi! What are you doing here?"

"You know her?" Shadow said. "Eclipse, if you would be so kind."

"Right."

Eclipse grabbed Megumi and dragged her along after Shadow.

Eventually, once they were in the forest, Kaoru decided she would give in a walk like a normal person the rest of the way to wherever they were going. When Shadow passed a pile of unconscious guys, she knew they were getting close.

"What happened to them!" Kaoru asked, startled.

"Boot to the head," Shadow said. "Literally."

"What?"

"We beat them up," Shadow clarified dryly.

"Ah."

A little bit farther ahead, Shadow stopped in a clearing. "Voila. Time machine."

The 1880-natives' jaws dropped.

"Wanna go for a ride?" Shadow asked.

Before any of the gaping 1880-ers could answer, Shadow's eyes widened.

"Really, you have no choice now," she said. "Get in."

"What? Why?" Yahiko said.

Before anybody could say anything else, several of the unconscious guys they had passed moments earlier walked into the clearing.

"Get in!" Shadow snapped, throwing Yahiko, Kaoru, and Megumi into the time machine and jumping in after them. Eclipse jumped in and Shadow slammed the lid and took off.

"See? It _flies_," Shadow said. "I told you I'm not a crap head."

"Oh my God...!" Kaoru said, staring. "Who are you?"

"Didn't I tell you that already? I don't remember. Eclipse, do you remember where else Koenma said the time thingy went?"

"Uh-uh."

"Then, off to 2010 we go!" Shadow said, pushing a few buttons. A few minutes later, they were hovering above a forest.

"Did we go anywhere? It looks the same," Eclipse said. Suddenly, there was an explosion of sound and light, and the time machine went spinning through the air.

"We're under attack!" Eclipse shouted.

"NO SHIT!"

"Do something about it!"

"Like what?"

"You're the video game addict! Use your skills and strategy to save us, baka!" Eclipse snapped.

"Yes, Your Hiney," Shadow snapped, pulling a few levers and pushing some buttons and hoping it would do something.

Megumi was just terrified. She looked sort of like she was going to either cry, wet herself, or pass out. Kaoru looked slightly green, and Yahiko's eyes were the size of watermelons. He was terrified.

There was a thud and the machine stopped moving.

"What's going on?" Kaoru asked, horrified.

"Errrrrrrrrrrrgggggg..." Shadow growled, leaning forward against the acceleration. "We're... not... moving..."

"No, really?" Eclipse said. "I thought we were winning a race!"

"You're one dense child, and I pity you," Shadow said, leaning back slightly. That slack was enough, and they started to get pulled backwards.

"WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE!" Shadow screamed. That was it. Megumi started hyperventilating, Yahiko slumped on Kaoru's shoulder, and Kaoru threw up (ewww...).

"GROSS! Actually, I don't really think we're gonna die..." Shadow said.

"Too late now, Shadow," Eclipse said. "Use your brain before you speak."

"I did. My brain had to send the message to--"

"You know what I mean!"

By now, the time machine had been pulled down into the trees and, with a thud and a jerk, it landed. Then, nothing happened. Shadow nervously reached forward to the controls and opened the lid.

It opened. Nothing happened.

Looking around she saw absolutely nothing. She pulled herself out and dropped to the ground. Nothing happened.

Everybody unpacked themselves from the machine. _Then_ something happened. The ground under them vanished and they fell, screaming, to their deaths below.

_Thump._

Shadow landed on a hard metal floor. She lay there for a second, surrounded by everyone else who had fallen, before getting up and rubbing her poor injured backside.

"My bum hurts," she said in a little whiney voice.

"That's nice, Shadow," Eclipse said sarcastically. Shadow looked around.

"Where are we?"

"A tube, it looks like," Eclipse replied.

"Oh. That tells me a lot. Look, we're in a tube, aren't we special?" Shadow retorted sarcastically.

There was a loud buzz that caused everybody to smack their hands over their ears until it finally silenced.

"Who are you?" came a female voice.

"WE ARE DOOM! FEAR US!" Shadow hollered.

"_Shadow_!" Eclipse yelped. "We're harmless!"

"_Harmless_?" Shadow said in disbelief.

"Why are you here, time travelers?"

"Who says we're time travelers?"

"The machine you are using appears out of nowhere and has many of the same designs and components as our time travel device," the girl's voice said. Shadow thought this over and blinked.

"Would you know a Hiei Jaganshi, by any chance?" she asked.

"HIEI? WHERE?" came a second girl's voice over the intercom. "WHERE'S MY HIEI? MY HIEI!"

"_Your_ Hiei?" Shadow said coldly under her breath.

"Baka, Hiei is in his room," the first voice said. "Get lost."

"HIEIIIIIIIIII!"

"Hey, don't be a coward. I'd like to talk to you face to face," Shadow called.

"Coward? I'm not a coward!"

"You seem like it to me... Trapping us in a room with no doors and talking to us through some intercom. Afraid of us, eh?"

"Fine!" the girl's voice snapped. The next thing Shadow knew, she and her group of 'rescuers' were standing in a room full of control panels, screens, blinking lights, and buttons. Several other girls were wandering around pushing buttons and looking at screens.

"Hi-tech, don't you think?" Shadow said to Eclipse.

"Uh-huh."

"What year is it, would you mind me asking?" Shadow asked in a British accent. "And even if you do mind me asking, it's too late now, cuz I already asked, and you couldn't stop me."

"Shut up, girl. Who do you think you are just appearing on private property in a time machine?" the girl asked.

"Well, I think... last time anybody called me by name, I think I was Shadow," Shadow said. "So I'm supposing that's who I think I am."

"Bakayarou!" Eclipse snapped. She turned to the girl. "We are a bunch of innocent travelers who just happened across this suspicious-looking building in the middle of a forest in 2010 while we were looking for lost treasure."

"Hiei is treasure?" Shadow said blankly.

"Hiei? Damn, I knew it. You've come for some stupid rescue mission. I'm afraid you have to die," the unidentified girl said. She pulled a gun out of her belt.

"Ah ha ha ha... I think not," Shadow said. "You see, I am immortal. I cannot die, except by those who know how to kill me."

"Shadow... What is your problem?" Eclipse asked. Shadow's eyes widened and she lunged out of the way just as a beam of light shot out of the gun. It trimmed a bit of hair off the top of Yahiko's head and fried the opposite wall.

"HOW DID YOU FIND OUT?" Shadow screamed.

"Guns kill everyone," the girl retorted.

"Ah."

The girl turned and aimed at Shadow again. She jumped up onto a panel and dodged the shot. Of course, when jumping on a panel covered in buttons, you're bound to step on some. Shadow stepped on quite a few, rather lucky buttons, and a monitor turned on. Of course, she didn't see this, because she jumped down and took off running, beams of light energy stuff at her heels.

"Shadow! It's Kurama!" Eclipse yelled. Shadow stopped dead. Then she quickly unstopped and jumped in the air to dodge another shot.

Hiei stared at the monitor that had just lowered down from the ceiling, as did everyone else. Suddenly, an image showed up and his jaw dropped.

Eclipse. And some other girls he didn't know, along with some kid.

"Yahiko! Kaoru-dono!" Kenshin said.

"Kenshin?" came Kaoru's voice. She ran to the monitor and stared. She started crying. "Kenshin, I'm so happy to see you!"

Sano grinned. "Hey, Jo-chan!" he called.

"Sano! What happened?"

Suddenly, Kaoru was pushed out of the way and Hiei heard Shadow's voice... in a British accent.

"No time for that now, chums! Gotta run!" she said. She vanished off the screen and all they could see was walls and blinkie lights. Then Shadow's face appeared back on the screen.

"We're kind of in the middle of being shot at, savvy? Rescue you later, chums!" Shadow said. Hiei was relieved to see her. It obviously showed...

"That's Shadow, isn't it?" Sano said, more of a statement of fact than a question.

"Hai. How could you tell?"

"Maybe it had something to do with that big grin on your face when you saw her," Sano taunted. Hiei realized he was smiling and quickly stopped and turned his back. Sanosuke just laughed.

"I can't believe we have to rely on Shadow to get us out!" Yusuke was saying. "Shadow of all people!"

"At least she got here! Give her credit for that, at least," Kurama said, smiling.

"Koenma probably transported her."

Shadow ran by on the screen. A girl with a gun chased after her. A second later, Shadow came back to the screen and pushed a few buttons on the panel below it. The next thing anybody knew, they were all in a big white room. "All" meaning: Hiei and the guys, Shadow and her group, and all the nameless fanatics.

Hiei stepped forward and ran into a force field. He sighed.

Shadow and the other girls (and Yahiko) were all trapped on the other side of the force field.

"TIME TO KICK SOME ASS!" Shadow screamed. Her group all took fighting stances (except for kitsune-sensei Megumi). The other girls all took stances as well. They stood and glared at each other. Seconds passed. Minutes ticked by. Hours turned into days and days turned into weeks and really it was only about two or five minutes that went by.

Finally, Shadow got sick of waiting. She let out a loud insane laugh in an evil tone that signified impending doom to whomever got in her way. Her war cry.

"MUWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

She then proceeded to stand up perfectly straight and tall, bow, and start doing an Irish tap dance thing across the floor while singing an opera-like stream of German insults and curses in an Australian accent. Which, if you think about it, would be hard.

Everybody was so stupified, confused, fascinated, and embarrassed with Shadow's antics they forgot they were supposed to be fighting.

She got across the floor, stopped dead in front of the leader girl (as in, no more dancing, singing, or foreign accent), and bowed again, knocking her head off the other girl's. Of course, Shadow's thick skull needs much more than 800 blows with an iron pole to injure it, so knocking her head off some wimpy girl's skull wouldn't hurt. But the other girl seemed slightly woosy.

She then began a Mexican dance of sorts in circles around the entire group. Eclipse was sick of staring. She wanted to boot some head. She charged with a yell and attacked the nearest girl. This threw the entire rescue team into fight mode (once again excluding kitsune-sensei Megumi) and they attacked. Shadow was still doing a Mexican dance, however, this time singing one of the many Goldfish Crackers' commercial jingles in Italian.

Hiei watched her, embarrassed beyond anything imaginable by her dancing, proud that she'd gotten this far, and angry at her stupidity, all at the same time. Odd. Heck, everybody was watching Shadow. Especially the ten or something girls she was dancing circles around.

"SHADOW! STOP DANCING AND FIGHT!" Hiei finally screamed, sick of watching her dance like Elvis Presley whilst singing "This is the Song that Never Ends" in French. She froze in the position she was in, then stood straight up, and unexpectedly punched one of the girls right in the face.

"HEEEEEEEEEYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" she screamed. Then she did a mosh-pit kinda thing and threw herself on top of them. She pinned one down and strangled her, laughing like a lunatic the entire time.

"Muwaha ha ha! Mahahaha! Mwahahaha! Mahamaha! GAHAHAHAHA!"

Once the girl had had her head beaten off the floor for five mintues straight, and Shadow was satisfied that she was thoroughly unconscious, she stood up and dragged one girl off to the side and began to give her instruction in break dancing.

She did a demonstration. Then she gestured for the girl to try. For some reason, the girl complied. The second she was on the ground, Shadow jumped on top of her with both feet and started jumping up and down, laughing insanely.

Meanwhile, Kaoru, Yahiko, and Eclipse were bringing down some major whoop-ass on the other girls. There were three left, not counting the one Shadow was jumping up and down on.

Which, speaking of jumping up and down, Shadow was still jumping up and down. The girl was thoroughly flattened, and she was starting to turn into goo.

"SHADOW, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING? SHE'S DEAD, OKAY?" Hiei screamed.

"I think... I see where you get your violence from, Hiei-san," Kenshin said. Everybody was staring in horror as the girl turned into a puddle of slimey bloody goo on the floor under Shadow's feet.

"SHADOW! SHE'S DEAD! ECLIPSE, STOP HER!"

Before Eclipse could reach Shadow, she stopped jumping. She walked over to the force field, panting, and flattened her face up against it.

"I see dead people," she whispered. "... Wait... You look somewhat familiar. Have I harassed you before?" Before Hiei could answer, Shadow quirked an eyebrow, reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out an orange.

"Mmmm... Vitamin O... For orange..." She proceeded to gnaw at it until she broke through the skin. Then she proceeded to pull the skin off bit by bit and spit it on the floor. Finally, she was down to the fruit. She glanced around, then darted to a corner, turned her back on everybody, and shoved the entire thing in her mouth. Whole. After that, she swallowed it whole and danced back over to the force feild.

"Hello, chum," she said in her British accent. "Long time no see, eh?"

"Are you okay?" Hiei asked.

"Of course I am, Hiei! I'm just happy is all," Shadow said in her normal voice. "And I like to eat oranges."

"Sigh."

"So, you're not stuck in 1844 anymore, huh?" Shadow asked.

"1844? What?"

"Um... 2010."

"We're still in 2010."

"Oh yeah. Come with me," Shadow said. "I know the way out." She got down low and stalked out of the room through a door that wasn't there. In other words, she ran into a wall.

"Shadow..." Eclipse said.

Meanwhile, Kaoru and Yahiko and Megumi had been haivng a nice little reunion with Kenshin and Sano over a few feet away from everyone else.

"Wait! These people had these little controlly thingies in their pockets," Shadow said. She lunged at the nearest girl and pulled a small portable control panel out of her pocket.

"Let's see, I'd say this button would do it," she said. She pushed a button labeled "out."

The room dematerialized and they were back out in the forest with their time machine.

"Ah. Who here is a tech genius?" Shadow asked, thrusting her fist up in the air. "THAT WOULD BE ME! ME! WORSHIP ME, I AM ALL MIGHTY! HOW DO YOU LIKE THEM ORANGES?"

"...Don't you mean apples?" Eclipse asked.

"Whatever! They're both vegetables!"

"...They're fruits..."

"Don't get smart with me!"

"If I _were_ getting smart with you, how would _you_ of all people be able to tell?"

"GRRRRR!"

"So, Shadow, how did you get this time machine?" Kurama asked quickly to stop Shaodw from tearing off Eclipse's head.

"I'm resourceful," Shadow said. "There was this kid and he had a time machine, and now he doesn't and I do."

"You stole it?"

"The book told me to," Shadow accused.

"Are you not in the least bit happy to see these guys?" Eclipse asked. "Cuz you aren't acting any different than you did while they were gone."

"I'm not?" Shadow said cluelessly. "Okay." She lunged at Hiei and tackled him in a huge hug. And they lay there with their arms wrapped around each other for a minute or so. Then Eclipse started to get impatient.

"Okay, Shadow..." she said.

Shadow kissed Hiei on the cheek. She seemed all happy, until...

"DON'T EVER GET KIDNAPPED AGAIN!" she screamed suddenly. "I WON'T BE SO FORGIVING NEXT TIME!"

"It's not my fault! I was asleep!" Hiei said, startled.

"Yeah, yeah, excuses, excuses," Shadow said, standing up and pulling Hiei to his feet. "All aboard the time machine!"

The entire mob of people crammed themselves in the time machine (all, what, 18...?), Shadow pushed in a few numbers, and announced, "First stop, 2004 Reikai, as I have no idea what to do with about five of you."

"...How do you know which ones you don't know what to do with?" Eclipse asked.

"Run that by me again?" Shadow said stupidly.

"How do you know which ones you don't know what to do with?" Eclipse said, slower this time.

"I don't, but Kaoru said that Kenshin, Sano, and three others vanished from her time. Three vanished from my house. That leaves five out of thirteen. Simple math, really," Shadow said.

"Shadow! I'm proud of you! You didn't need anybody to think that up for you!" Kurama said teasingly.

"Yeah, shut your pie hole, fox," she said.

"I don't like pie."

"I do! I like apple pie, and cherry pie, and strawberry pie, and..."

Shadow kept talking as the time machine revved up and they were transported to 2004. She kept talking as they traveled to Reikai. She kept listing pies as they left Inuyasha, Sesshoumaru, Miroku, Vash, and Wolfwood in Koenma's office and headed back to her front yard to take Kenshin's group back to 1880.

"And pizza pie! And chicken pot pie! And..."

She stopped and stared at the spot where they had landed the time machine. It was gone. And on her porch sat Vegeta. He looked pissed. Her jaw dropped. Then she thought of something.

"And I also like that one kind of pie with the ice cream and oreo cookie bits."

"SHADOW! For God's sake!"

* * *

Ha ha ha. Cliffhanger of sorts. Shadow's hyper, Vegeta is sitting on her porch looking pissed, and Kenshin's group is still in 2004 Tokyo instead of 1880 Tokyo where they belong. Hee hee... REVIEW OR DIE BY BEING STOMPED ON! 


	10. In which nothing greatly important happe...

Thanks to all reviewers.

**CHAPTER NINE  
**In which nothing greatly important happens

"I see you brought back the time machine," Vegeta said, stalking towards Shadow.

"Shadow, is this who you stole the time machine from?" Kurama asked.

"Actually, I think it might have been his son..."

"HEY! I'm talking to you!" Vegeta snapped. Shadow snapped to attention.

"Yessir?"

"I don't know who you are, but--"

"I can change that," Shadow said, walking towards Vegeta. "Let's get to know each other." She locked her arm around his and attempted to lead him away, however all it resulted in was a punch in the face. She slid back and ended up at Saitou's feet.

"Hello, tall insect man," Shadow said woosily. Sanosuke laughed.

"Shadow, are you okay?" Hiei asked, darting over to her.

"I am," she said, jumping up. "And now I want revenge. NOBODY HITS ME AND GETS AWAY WITH IT! NOT EVEN SOME SPANDEX-MAN!"

She stomped towards Vegeta. Once she was a few inches away from him, she stopped and pointed to her boots.

"Steel-toed," she said, smirking.

"That's nice, girl, but nobody steals from me, kicks me, or calls me spandex-man and gets away with it. And if they do all three..." Vegeta said, letting his threat hang. Shadow smirked, tilting her head slightly.

"Let me guess. I'm doomed?" she said in a British accent again.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"YAY! DOOM!"

She then kicked Vegeta in the nuts and tore off down the street as fast as her legs would carry her. He had recovered in minutes and went after her, shooting energy and flying and all that fancy shmancy crap he can do.

Half an hour later, Hiei was carrying a severly mauled Shadow into the basement infirmary. Kurama trailed after him with a Ziploc bag full of purple-tinted goo. Eclipse was left to make the 1880 group feel comfortable. She let them into the living room and said, "Make yourselves comfortable, don't blow anything up, and avoid closed doors," then went and played video games in Shadow's room.

Now, leaving a group of people from about 124 years in the past in a living room full of modern technology is stupid. The first thing that happened was the phone rang. It rang, and rang, and the entire group stared at it like it would blow up any second. Finally, Saitou walked over and tentatively lifted the reciever.

After a second, there was a voice. "Hello? Hello? Shadow? Eclipse? Come on, stop playing jokes!"

Saitou's eyes widened and he put the phone to his ear.

"Hello?" he said cautiously.

"... What the hell? Who are you?"

"I think... that's none of your business..."

"Oh my God! Shadow has strange guys in her house who won't even introduce themselves! Wait until Hiei finds out about this!"

There was a loud click and after a second the phone started buzzing. Saitou pulled it away from his ear and stared at it, not exactly sure what to do with it. Kurama walked into the room.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"It was ringing," Saitou said. Kurama sighed and took the reciever, put it to his ear, then hung up.

"Who was it?"

"I don't know."

"Ah."

"Kurama-san, how is Shadow-dono doing?" Kenshin asked.

"She'll be fine. Believe me, she's been worse."

"Oh... Does she fight often?"

"Not really, but she does other things that end up with her mauled. Like... ticking off the local forest creatures. She got chased by a bear once when she woke it up from hibernation, and when it caught her, it beat her up and hung her by her shoelaces in a tree. When Hiei found her, he just sighed and walked the other direction. So this isn't that bad. She'll probably be awake in no time," Kurama said. Suddenly, she was behind him.

"KONNICHIWA, SHUKUN KITSUNE!" (Good day, Lord Fox)

"Shukun Kitsune?" Sanosuke muttered.

Shadow hugged Kurama.

"Shadow... You're... er... I can't... breathe..." Kurama said, prying her arms away. Hiei walked up the stairs from the basement and grabbed her by the back of her shirt as he walked by. She was dragged off Kurama and plopped on the floor, staring up at Hiei.

"KONNICHIWA, SHUKUN RYUU!" she screamed, rolling over and putting her forehead on Hiei's boot.

"Shadow, you're scaring our guests," Kurama said, grabbing the back of her shirt and pulling her to her feet.

"If you don't mind, I'm going to go look around to see what havoc has been wreaked while I was gone," Hiei said, walking up the stairs.

"Kurama, do me a favor and take these people somewhere and explain time travel to them," Shadow said, pointing at the group she had dragged out of 1880. "I kind of just threw them into the time machine and said we were going to 2010."

"Why me?" Kurama asked.

"Because you're a friggin' GENIUS!" Shadow snapped. "You should know these things!"

"Well, yes, but..."

Shadow grabbed Kaoru, Yahiko, Megumi, and Kurama and dragged them to an empty room. "I think they deserve to know, because who knows how long they're gonna be stuck here before I can get another time machine. Catch them up on the latest technology."

She slammed the door and walked back to the living room. Perching on the back of the couch, she looked at the five guys left.

"So, you people got names?" she asked. "I think you already know I'm Shadow."

"Hai, we know. And we do have names," Kenshin said. "I am Kenshin Himura."

"Sanosuke Sagara," Sano said.

"Seijuro Hiko. The thirteenth."

After that, they hit a brick wall and Kenshin had to introduce Saitou and Aoshi.

"Soooo..."

Shadow was trying to think of something to strike up a conversation when the front door burst open and Kuwabara walked in. His jaw dropped.

"FIVE! I knew there was one unknown guy, but _five_? And Hiei's no where to be seen! What the hell can you do with five guys!"

"A lot of stuff," Shadow said, smirking. "But all I'm planning on doing with them is letting them stay here until I find a way to get them home, baka. What did you think I was gonna do with them? Breeding stock?"

All five guys stared at her in horror, not to mention Kuwabara, whose jaw was inches from the floor.

"So, why'd you come here?" Shadow asked.

"Well, I tried calling... but some guy answered..."

"Uh-huh."

"Soo... Where's Yusuke?"

"Home. He went home the second we got back to our time."

"Oh... So where's Hiei?"

"He went upstairs to see what kinds of havoc I had wreaked on our house without him around. Of course, he didn't bother looking at the broom closet in the hall... That's the only havoc I remember... So, if you're just here to look for Yusuke, are you gonna leave now? Cuz he's not here," Shadow said.

"Uh..."

"SHADOW! WHAT THE HELL IS THIS STUFF IN YOUR ROOM?" Hiei screamed from upstairs.

"WHAT STUFF? BE MORE SPECIFIC!"

"THIS BOX! THIS OUIGIE BOARD THING!"

"THAT'S MY PSI-CHICK STUFF! LEAVE IT ALONE! ONLY I CAN USE IT, IT MIGHT BITE OFF YOUR HANDS!" Shadow screamed. She ran up the stairs an into her room, loaded all the stuff into a box, and shoved it back into her closet.

Meanwhile, Eclipse was sitting in front of the video game system, completely oblivious to anything but the little blue hedgehog running around gathering rings on the TV screen.

"SHADOW!" came Kuwabara's voice from downstairs.

"What's Kuwabara doing here!" Hiei asked.

"He called and one of the 1880 guys answered the phone and he thought I was cheating on you, so he came over," Shadow said, walking out of the room. Hiei trailed after her.

"WHAT DO YOU WANT, BAKAYAROU?" she screeched.

"Where did these guys come from, anyway? And... how did Hiei get back? And Yusuke...? Weren't they gone?"

Shadow let out a disgusted groan. "Hiei, you go explain." She pushed him to the top of the stairs. "Go!"

"Uck. Fine." Hiei walked downstairs and Shadow followed.

"Okay, here's the deal, baka," he said. "We were kidnapped and put in 2010. Shadow came and 'bravely' rescued us, killing several people and stealing a time machine in the process. So now we are back and you are doomed because that is never happening to me again, so you'll have to put up with me until one or the other of us dies. Okay?"

"Oh. Okay."

"Now would you be so kind as to leave my house?" Shadow asked.

"But that didn't explain who these guys are..." Kuwabara said.

"They were kidnapped too, and before we could get them back to their own time the dude who I stole the time machine from came back and took it and his father tried to beat me up but ended up as a blob of goo in a Ziploc bag in me freezer," Shadow said.

"In 'me freezer'? Don't you mean 'my'?" Hiei asked. Shadow gave him a death glare. "I just meant... last time I checked, you weren't like... Irish or British... or whatever country talks like that..."

"Irish, I believe. So anyway, Kuwabara, that's why these guys are here, and I barely even know their names, so there is absolutely nothing going on between us. Okay? I'm all for Hiei... Mind, body, and soul," Shadow said, throwing her arm around the little demon's shoulders, just to freak Kuwabara out. "Mostly body."

Hiei decided to play along and he wrapped his arms around Shadow's waist and pulled her close to him.

Kuwabara and the entire RK gang stared as Shadow and Hiei leaned toward each other to kiss. Their lips were inches apart when Kuwabara couldn't stand it anymore.

"PLEASE STOP!" he screamed. Shadow and Hiei both burst into hysterical laughter at the look on his face. Quickly, Shadow produced a camera from somewhere (dunno where... a pocket, maybe) and snapped a picture.

"That's priceless," Shadow said. "I can only imagine what you would have done if we had actually kissed."

"Died, maybe," Kuwabara said.

"Really!" Hiei said hopefully.

"Please don't!" Kuwabara said, knowing what was going through Hiei's mind. "I'll just go insane."

"Damn. You'd probably be even more annoying insane than you would be sane... If you are sane..."

"He's sane. I'm the lunatic here," Shadow said, grinning evilly.

"True enough. Now, Kuwabara, if you don't mind, GET THE HELL OUTTA MY HOUSE!" Hiei screamed. "I'm sick of looking at your ugly face."

"Hey! I'm not ugly!"

There was dead silence for a few seconds before Shadow, Hiei, Sano, and Hiko all burst out laughing. Of course, laughing is against the law for Saitou and Aoshi, and Kenshin isn't big on making fun of people, so... They didn't laugh.

"You guys are so cruel..." Kuwabara said, sulking out of the house.

"WOO! HE'S GONE!" Shadow said, jumping up and down.

"You were right, Hiei," Sanosuke said. "Kuwabara _is_ stupid."

"No, ya think?" Shadow said.

A little bit later, Kurama came out of the room Shadow had forced him into, along with Kaoru, Megumi, and Yahiko.

"All caught up? Good, now give a guided tour of the technology in this house so they don't blow anything up," Shadow ordered. Kurama glared.

"No."

"NOW, LACKEY!"

"You do it, Shadow. Or have Hiei do it. It's your house."

"So?"

"So you know better what to tell them then I do!"

"Okay, fine. Guys, listen up. Stay in this room and do not touch anything unless I say you can. At all times," Shadow said. "We're working on a way to get you home as we speak. Okay? So you should be home soon."

"Good!" Yahiko said. "This place is too strange for my liking."

"Yeah, shut up kid. If I went back to your time I would think your place was strange too!" Shadow snapped. "For your information, this house is highly wonderful and that's mostly just because I live in it. I make it all worth the while."

"Yeah right! An ugly girl like you?"

Sanosuke, Kaoru, and Shadow all hit Yahiko in the head at the same time and he fell to the floor with swirly eyes.

"I'M NOT UGLY! I'm _perfect_," Shadow said, fluttery stars and whatnot around her as she struck a pose.

"Baka risu," Saitou muttered. Shadow blinked, staring at him cluelessly.

"What did you call me?"

"Baka risu."

"Why...?"

"Because you're a baka."

"That's doesn't explain the 'risu' part..."

"You look like one."

"I do not!"

"Don't take it personally, Shadow. He's got nicknames for everyone," Sanosuke said. "Most of them are animals."

"BUT I'M NOT SOME ACORN-GATHERING RODENT!" Shadow screeched. "I DON'T LIVE IN A PARK! DO I LOOK LIKE I LIVE IN A PARK? DON'T ANSWER THAT!"

Just then, Eclipse came down the stairs, walked through the room without even noticing the people standing around, and went down the hall into the kitchen. Shadow continued screaming and yelling until Eclipse came back through with a whole block of cheese in her hand.

"And that one is nezumi," Saitou said, noticing Eclipse.

"Eclipse is?" Shadow said.

"Huh?" Eclipse said stupidly, looking up. "I is what?"

"Nezumi," Hiei said. "Saitou is giving people nicknames.

"Oh. How creative. But I don't think I have anything in common with a mouse."

"Well I don't think I'm anything like a squirrel, but hey, if it makes tall insect man happy, we'll just go along with it, right?" Shadow said sarcastically.

"Yes, of course. Who is tall insect man?" Eclipse asked.

"Him," Shadow said, pointing at Saitou.

"Okay. I'm going to go play video games and get fat, all right?" Eclipse said.

"_Get_ fat? Dude, you already _are_ fat," Shadow said.

"Hey!"

Eclipse then proceeded to strangle Shadow. Everybody stared. Finally, Hiko snapped out of it and pulled the girls apart.

"Behave, bakas," he said, dropping Eclipse onto the couch and pushing Shadow backwards into Hiei. "Pathetic."

"AM NOT!" Shadow snapped, lunging at the tall man and attempting to strangle him. Of course, she wasn't strong enough, and he just stood there until Aoshi was so kind as to pry her off and 'accidentally' 'drop' her on the floor.

"I feel sexually outnumbered," Shadow said, looking around and counting. Eight guys, and, counting her, four girls. "The guys outnumber the girls two to one. I claim Hiei and Kurama!" She jumped up and locked arms with the two demons. Everybody stared at her cluelessly.

"Shadow...?"

"Oh, never mind," Shadow grumbled. "I'm going to my room."

"NOOO! I'm playing video games in there!" Eclipse whined.

"Too bad," Shadow chirped, running up the stairs.

"Actually, she looks a little like a monkey, too..." Saitou said absently. "Risu-Saru?"

"I like it. It suits her. Squirrel-monkey," Hiei said. He grinned.

"I AM NOT A SQUIRREL-MONKEY!" Shadow screamed from upstairs.

"YES YOU ARE!" Hiei shouted back.

"BLEAH!"

"WHATEVER!"

"DON'T WHATEVER ME!"

"I WILL IF I WANT TO!"

"HIEI JAGANSHI, DON'T GET SMART WITH ME!"

"IF I WERE, HOW WOULD YOU KNOW?"

"WHY DOES EVERYONE SAY THAT?"

Shadow came thundering down the stairs and lunged across the room to tackle Hiei. Saitou watched her curiously.

"It's hard to decide what to call her... Now she reminds me of..."

"Saitou, why don't you just call her 'oban' and get it over with?" Aoshi asked. Shadow froze and slowly turned to look at him.

"What did you say?"

"I said--"

"I HEARD YOU THE FIRST TIME!"

"Oo"

Shadow pried herself loose from Hiei and lunged at Aoshi, falling short several feet by ramming into Sanosuke.

"Really, I think Shadow is a lot like a psychotic goat pumped up on drugs," Hiei said to Kurama.

Kurama sighed. "Why don't we just call her Shadow and leave it at that?"

"Kurama! I love you! You said it perfectly!" Shadow said from where she was sitting on the floor at Sanosuke's feet, unraveling a thread from the bottom of his pants. She jumped up and hugged him.

"Sure, okay, Shadow... Um... I suggest you stop hugging me and start thinking of a way to get these guys home, like you promised," Kurama said, trying to pry the girl off of him. She was stuck to him like a suction cup, with her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist.

"Shadow, let go! Kurama is right."

"OKAY! WE'RE OFF TO VEGETA'S HOUSE!" Shadow said, letting go and running out the door.

"Vegeta's? She's gonna go back there after she trampled him into goo?" Hiei said, staring after her in horror.

"We'd better go with her," Kurama said.

"Yeah. You guys stay here, and _please_, don't touch _anything_ if you don't know what it is..." Hiei said to the RK group. He and Kurama ran out the door and down the street after Shadow, who was running in circles because she wasn't sure she knew where she was going.

"This way, Shadow," Kurama said, steering in the direction of Vegeta's house.

"HOW DO YOU KNOW!"

"He knows _everything_, Shadow. Surely you've realized that already?" Hiei said.

"Oh. Then, this way it is!" Shadow chirped, running off.

Hiei and Kurama exchanged glances (which plainly said "Oh my God, she get stupider every day.") and followed.

* * *

Well, that's another chapter dished out to the world... I think after I finish the story (there's still a chapter or two left, though), I'm gonna post some bonus/blooper chapters. Like, "outtakes" from the story. Hee hee. Maybe I'll make another chapter kinda like the intermission but... at the end of the story. Like, an "end of the story" party. And I apologize to the people who like Trigun and Inuyasha, cuz I barely had them in this story at all. I haven't really seen enough Inuyasha to know Sesshoumaru's attitude and speaking and stuff, Inuyasha and Miroku... Half the time I forget they were there, as well as Vash and Wolfwood, too... I should write a Trigun fic. Should I? 


	11. In which it ends in very few sentences

ON WITH MY 770 WORD CHAPTER! WOOT!

**CHAPTER TEN  
**In which it ends in very few sentences

The trio arrived at Capsule Corp about an hour later.

"Stay back, Shadow. Don't let them see you or we have no chance of getting the time machine," Kurama said.

"Yes, Your Highness," Shadow said, bowing deeply. "I am ever-so-humble in your presence. Please bless me with your child."

Shadow was promptly cracked in the head with a baseball bat by a certain annoyed fire demon.

"Now is no time to be an idiot, Shadow!"

"What are you talking about? She's always an idiot. It can't be helped," Kurama said. Shadow smiled.

"That's why I like him."

Hiei rolled his eyes. "How are we gonna go about this?"

"Direct approach," Kurama said, pressing the button on the intercom.

"Hello?" came a man's voice shortly.

"Trunks?" Kurama asked.

"Yes... Do I know you?"

"You know someone I know. We need to talk to you."

"About what?"

"It's important."

"That doesn't tell me anything."

"Look, could we come in?" Kurama said. "This is extremely important and I'm sure we can make a deal or something."

"A deal? What do you want?"

Shadow let out a disgusted sigh and stepped forward to say something, but Kurama slapped his hand over her mouth.

"We just want to talk to you. Really, it will only take ten minutes of your time," Kurama said.

"Who is 'we'?"

"Myself and two friends."

"Well, I suppose. I'm not very busy anyway."

"Marvelous!"

The door opened and Hiei led them in. Kurama still had his hand clamped over Shadow's mouth to keep her completely silent. Trunks walked into the room.

"Get out!" he said the instant his eyes settled on Shadow.

"Wait! Trunks, she's not going to steal anything this time. Believe me, we can keep control of her."

"What do you want? My time machine?"

"Well, in a manner of speaking... We need to use it," Kurama said.

"There's eight people from 1880 in my living room at home," Hiei said. Trunks looked at them.

"Two conditions. One, I have to be the one operating it, and two, that girl can NOT be anywhere NEAR IT."

"Oh. That's fine. Seriously, it'll be no problem. Thanks a million," Kurama said.

"Where's my dad?" Trunks asked.

"Ah. Well, he is currently incapacitated, but he's getting better," Kurama said nervously. "Seriously. He'll be fine."

"Let's just go. I don't want those people in my house any longer than necessary," Hiei said. "They're there alone with Eclipse. That's bad."

"Yes. Let's go," Kurama said. Trunks got his time machine ready and they flew back to Shadow and Hiei's house.

Once there, Shadow ran into the house to make sure it hadn't been blown up (of course she was too stupid to realize that if it had blown up she would have been able to tell OUTSIDE). All she found was a group of very bored-looking people in 1880 clothes.

Eclipse and Sanosuke were playing some card game and gambling, Saitou was staring out the window, Aoshi was staring out another window, Hiko was looking very bored and watching Eclipse and Sano, and Kenshin, Kaoru, Yahiko, and Megumi were having some conversation about something.

"Woot! You guys get to go home! Of course, I can't see you off cuz Trunks hates me, probably because I killed his father, but Hey! Who cares, you know? Now get out of my house!" Shadow said.

"Finally," Saitou mumbled.

"What was that, old cricket?" Shadow asked, crossing her arms.

"I said 'Finally' because I am happy I'm finally getting away from you, Risu-saru."

"I AM NOT A SQUIRREL, OR A MONKEY, OR, WHILE WE'RE ON THE SUBJECT, A SQUIRREL-MONKEY!" Shadow screamed.

"That's nice."

"Okay everyone, let's get in the time machine so you can get home. I'm sure you're all rather glad, ne?" Kurama said. "I'll be going with you, since Hiei and Shadow don't trust Trunks and he doesn't feel safe around them. Anyway, let's go."

Shadow and Hiei stood there while the entire mob of 1880-ers passed them by. As Saitou passed Shadow, he couldn't resist hissing "Risu-saru" under his breath. Shadow lunged at him and attempted to bite out his throat, but he knocked her backwards and hurried out the door, because she's freaky and evil.

"WOOT! They're finally gone! MY LIFE IS BACK TO NORMAL!" Shadow screeched, watching the time machine lift off and vanish.

"Sort of. You've got a Ziploc bag full of goo that was once a man in your basement, and we have no clue what to do with it," Hiei said.

"I'll feed it to the weasels," Shadow said, shrugging.

"Oh. Well that's fine. Go for it."

"I will."

And so concludes the rather long story about the bishies. This chapter was an all-time short for this story, but there wasn't much to say. Kurama gets back okay. Trunks... well, for some reason he doesn't come back when Vegeta never shows up at home again. He's probably afraid of Shadow and says, "Screw it. Who cares if she's keeping my father locked in her basement and feeding him moldy rice? At least I'm safe."

Arrogant twit.

So anyway, they all live happily ever after.

However, there's gonna be quite a few added weird things at the end of this story (why this one and no others I don't know. But there will be. Never fear. I found some goofy stuff I wrote when I first started this story. It was written on notebook paper and lost in the deep dark recesses of a folder in my room (evil room), but I found it recently and I'm gonna type it up and add it as a goofy thing at the end of this story. Sooooo, woo. Anyway, until later, keep your face fixed on the computer screen and read all the rest of my other stories. There's about 15 others, isn't there? Not all are done, but they're there...


	12. PARATAY

I wasn't sure whether to post this or not. I'm afraid of dragging this story on and on… But hey, it's a party!**Fear it.**

**Ooh, I currently have 93 reviews on March 31, 2004. If I get seven more reviews on this story, it'll be my first with 100. And I'll be happy. So READ _AND _REVIEW, dammit!**

Hopefully there's no errors. I didn't proof read. I'm on a chapter-adding roll. I finally added to Work Sucks!

**PARATAY!**

Remember the intermission? Of course you do. It was in between... thinks I have no clue which chapters. scrolls up Chapters three and four. So anyway, we're back in that room. The room that had everything.

Shadow, Hiei, Aoshi, and Saitou were sleeping in the hot tub of all places. Nobody really seems to have noticed how Shadow always ends up sleeping with several guys at once... Well, this isn't sleeping _with_, like in a bed, it's sleeping in a hot tub a short distance from four guys... No, she's not some slut, either, though she may act like it at times... like earlier in the story when she kissed Koenma... and almost kissed Hiei... and... Ahem. Anywho...

Eclipse, Sano, Yusuke, Kenshin, and Youko (though he probably would rather have been sleeping in the hot tub with his arm around Shadow's waist, but that privelege was already taken by Hiei) were in the pool playing with a beach ball. Vash, Wolfwood, and Hiko were at the bar. Miroku and Inuyasha were playing cards while Sesshoumaru sulked in the corner.

AN: Other random people wandering around: Koenma, Kaoru, Yahiko, Kuwabara (yeah, it was going fine 'til I got to _him_...), Kagome, Sango (with Kilala, which I know is spelled Kirara becuz of the Japanese pronounciation of 'r' but for English pronounciation's sake, it's Kilala), um... Knives and Legato (coooool... evil, but cool... evilness makes them even cooler... snaps back to reality Ahem... as I was saying...), anyone else? Looking around. Nope. Shyew. This is gonna be hard to keep track of...

Eclipse caught the ball and held it, staring across the room at Shadow and the guys sleeping in the hot tub. An evil, Shadow-like smile appeared on her face.

"Who wants to torture Shadow?" she said evilly.

"Ooh! Pick me! Pick me!" Yusuke said, jumping up and down waving his arms.

"Well, I was thinking Youko would be more fit for the job," Eclipse said absentmindedly, snapping the fox's attention to her.

"Yes?" he prompted. Eclipse grinned and started planning with him in a low voice.

Random people around the room couldn't help but notice as a fox-man snuck across the room wearing nothing but swim trunks. And those random people started to suspect things. So those random people, some slightly drunk, watched very carefully as the swim suit-clad fox demon slid into the hot tub and carefully removed Hiei's arm from around Shadow's waist and pulled the said girl out of the hot tub.

Those same random people watched as Youko pulled Shadow onto one of those inflatable mattresses (King sized... for a reason) and went back to the hot tub for, wouldn't you know it: Aoshi. AN: Was Misao wandering around? scrolls up No. Okay, we're safe. Shadow won't be murdered by Itachi... Youko somehow managed to get Aoshi to the mattress and place him next to Shadow with his arm across her, resting on her hip.

"Why did you have to pick Aoshi?" Kenshin mumbled to Eclipse. "He's not going to be very pleased, de gozaru..."

"Maybe he'll talk," Eclipse said, shrugging. Kenshin stared at her.

"You're cruel, de gozaru..."

A few seconds later, Kenshin's got his famous 'oro' face as he watched Youko position Saitou on the mattress on the opposite side of Shadow so his hand was on her shoulder.

"Saitou-san isn't going to be happy, de gozaru... You really shouldn't do this... De gozaru..." he said in that odd higher-pitched voice he gets when he's got his oro face.

"Don't worry. Nobody's going to die... At most, Shadow is going to horribly maim those two," Eclipse said.

"What has gotten into you? You're not usually so evil," Sanosuke said. "Not that it's a bad thing... this is gonna be funny."

Shadow was now lying on her back with Aoshi on her left and Saitou on her right, and both had their hands on her. All three were asleep, and Youko was standing over them admiring his handiwork.

"Good job. Now get over here and let's wait," Eclipse said to Youko.

Just as Youko slipped back into the pool, the worst possible thing happened. No, neither Saitou nor Aoshi woke up.

Hiei did.

The entire room watched Hiei climb out of the hot tub, glance around the room, and spot... well... them.

"_WHAT IN THE SEVEN HELLS_!" he screamed. Shadow's eyes shot open. So did Saitou's and Aoshi's. All three were frozen with surprise. Aoshi and Saitou stared at each other across, then, simultaneously, their eyes slowly moved up to Shadow's face. Her eyes stayed wide and staring straight at the ceiling. It had startled her a bit to wake up to Hiei's yell and feel hands on her. And she continued being startled, staring up at the ceiling, until two shouts right beside her ears woke her up.

"AAAUUGH!"

The two men jumped up, stumbled on the air mattress, and fell backwards. Shadow bolt upright and looked to her sides, seeing two guys sprawled on the floor. Then she looked behind her and saw Hiei staring at her in horror. And straight in front of her, in the pool, Youko, Eclipse, Yusuke, and Sanosuke were laughing their heads off. The few guys at the bar were chuckling drunkenly, and one of the two card players was feeling envious (Miroku... Tsk.). Sesshoumaru, well, he was being Sesshoumaru-ish. The other people were having various reactions (Kuwabara was laughing loudest of all and he hadn't even been in the room to know what they were laughing about).

"WHO DID THAT!" Shadow yelled. The room quieted slightly, but Shadow figured that since several fingers were pointed at Eclipse and Youko, it had something to do with them. She lunged at them and tackled Youko so he fell backwards and both ended up underwater. Saitou and Aoshi looked at each other in horror. Hiei was slightly confused, slightly angry, and slightly... well... something else. He noticed Eclipse climb out of the pool and start to make her secret escape out in the open and bright light, and decided to have a 'chat' with her.

"Eclipse, I'm assuming you had something to do with... that..." he said, appearing in front of her.

"Ah... no."

"Sure you didn't."

"I didn't. I swear. It was all Youko."

"If it was all Youko, it would have been Shadow waking up in _Youko's_ arms, not Saitou and Aoshi's. Why'd you pick those two?"

"I didn't. I had nothing to do with it."

Before Hiei could further argue, Shadow came flying out of... somewhere... and slammed into Eclipse, strangling her.

"YOU TOLD HIM TO, YOU BAKA NEZUMI BUSU OBAN!"

Hiei stared at Shadow, startled by her insults. So did everybody else in the room, except Youko, who was coughing up water and trying to restart proper function of his lungs.

Finally, Shadow stopped abruptly and walked away. She grabbed Aoshi and Saitou's wrists and dragged them off into the corner. A second later, she stopped, stared at them, then said, "Stay right there," and ran off to fetch Hiei. Once the little group was assembled, she told them her plan, as far as she had developed it.

"We're getting revenge."

There was a long pause after her dramatic, serious words, which was broken by Aoshi's simple one-word sentence: "How?"

Shadow looked at him, still serious. "I don't quite know. But we are."

"Ah."

The group sat and stared at each other for a minute.

"Can I kill them?" Saitou asked.

"Nooo!" Shadow and Hiei said in horror.

"Bad tall insect man! Such evil thoughts! No. It has to be something that takes a lot of thought... Something flawless..." Shadow said dramatically.

"Well, how about..." Hiei started, and their plotting began...

Incident number one... The next day.

Youko did a cannonball into the deep end of the pool, completely unsuspecting and unaware that the group who had plotted against him the previous day was watching very carefully from the shallow end or somewhere nearby.

This group of evil people sat there watching as Youko did some underwater swimming, then emerged. He floated there treading water for a second with a surprised look on his face before his swim trunks appeared on top of the water next to him. He quickly grabbed them and pulled them on underwater while Shadow and her accomplices laughed at him. He climbed out of the pool and quickly grabbed his starting-to-fall-down-again swim trunks, darting across the room quickly to his little room place to figure out what had happened.

"What did you do?"

It was Hiko. Shadow and Hiei, sitting on the floor with their feet on the steps down into the pool, looked up at him and smiled innocently.

"They sabotaged the string on his swim trunks," Saitou said, smirking. Hiko quirked an eyebrow and walked away shaking his head.

Incident two, a few hours later.

Eclipse pulled open the door to her little room thingy and a rain of marbles, water balloons, and rotten apples (to the point of mushiness) came pouring out on top of her. She screamed.

Across the room, sitting on the couch and leaning against the back of the couch, Shadow, Saitou, Aoshi, and Hiei laughed, then dove behind the couch as Eclipse started hurling marbles at them. They couldn't help but laugh even harder. The scent of the perfume they'd filled the balloons with was so strong, she'd never get rid of it.

Shadow pulled the bottle out of her back pocket and looked at it with a smirk on her face.

"I knew all this crap would come in handy some day..."

"Where'd you even get all that?" Hiei asked.

"I made it."

"WELL WE DIDN'T WANT TO _KILL_ ECLIPSE!"

"Oh, she'll survive. It's not _poisonous_. It just has a really strong smell that hangs around for days, sometimes even weeks. Besides, it's not that bad of a smell..."

"No, it just smells like vinegar," Aoshi said sarcastically. "That's not bad."

During their conversation, they had failed to notice the onslaught of marbles had stopped. Somebody above them cleared her throat, and they all looked up at Eclipse, leaning over the back of the couch.

"Oops," Shadow said. She dove away and went headfirst into the pool, making a huge splash that drenched Youko, who was casually floating a few feet away. A second later, three more big splashes, along with little splashes of marbles, hit the water and drenched Youko again.

"That's not fair! The prank you pulled on her wasn't as humiliating!" Youko whined.

"Believe me, it'll be humiliating when she wants to go out in public next week and smells like vinegar," Shadow said from behind him, using him as a shield.

"What? I'm not going to be your shield! Eclipse, Shadow's over here!" Youko said, then submerged himself in the water. Hiei, Saitou, and Aoshi were spared from Eclipse's marble-throwing for a second while she hurled them at Shadow, who quickly dove underwater and curled up in a ball on the pool floor, six feet underwater.

When Sanosuke noticed Eclipse hurling marbles at a dark shape at the bottom of the pool, he couldn't help but saunter over and see what the deal was.

"What's up?" he asked.

"She's trying to kill Shadow," Hiei said when Eclipse didn't answer. Upon hearing his voice, Eclipse spun on him and pegged him in the chest with a marble.

"Ow!"

When Shadow came up for a breathe after a surprisingly long time, Eclipse pegged her in the side of the head.

"Oww!"

And then she ran out of marbles, and Saitou and Aoshi were spared from the wrath of the nezumi who smelled like vinegar.

"Stupid tall insect man and... other dude!" Eclipse snapped, out of lack of a nickname for Aoshi, as the two samurai stood at the edge of the pool.

"Stupid mouse girl!" Shadow taunted from the middle of the pool, jumping up and down to keep her head above the water. The entire room looked to Eclipse for her response.

"Shut up!"

Everybody looked at Shadow.

"Make me!"

Everybody looked at Eclipse.

"I will!"

You know how it goes from here...

"Wanna bet?"

"Twenty bucks!"

"Give it here!"

"No! I win! Gimme my money!"

"Not until you give me mine!"

"I don't owe you any!"

"Yeah you do! You have no idea how many bets I've won against you!"

"Yeah I do! None!"

"You just have a really crappy memory!"

"No, that's you!"

Seeing that this wouldn't end anytime soon, Hiei and Saitou exchanged glances. Hiei started towards Eclipse and Saitou walked into the pool towards Shadow. A second later, both girls had strong hands clamped over their mouths. However, they continued to screech at each other as best as they could in that condition. Saitou dragged Shadow out of the pool and they both stood there in their sopping wet clothes for a second, Shadow panting for breath as she and Eclipse glared at each other.

Finally, Saitou and Hiei gingerly lifted their hands from the girls' mouths. The two were silent.

"Busu," Eclipse hissed quietly. Shadow made a lunge, but Saitou caught her.

"Oban!" Shadow snapped. Then she glared up into Saitou's gold eyes. "Let me kill her... Oooooh, I'm gonna murder her..."

Saitou suddenly pulled Shadow to the side and Eclipse flew by with her leg out in a kick that would have hit Shadow straight between her eyes.

"BAKAYAROU OBAN BUSU... ah... BAKA... uh... KUSO-ATAMA... ahm..." Shadow was at a loss for original insults. So, she spouted off some English ones (remember, in one story I mentioned she had a list of swear words in various languages framed and hanging on a wall somewhere). "FAG! WHORE! SK--" Maybe Saitou spoke English, because he clamped his hand over Shadow's mouth before she could say anything else.

Shadow, angry, elbowed Saitou in the stomach repeatedly until he let her go, then she lunged at Eclipse and the two girls strangled the heck out of each other.

The next day...

Shadow and Eclipse were all made up, friends again, but Youko, insistent on a punishment, had ended up getting them stuck in a room with him and Miroku.

A few hours later, Shadow and Eclipse walked out, furious, dragging unconscious Youko and Miroku by their ankles.

"Some party, eh?" Hiei said, glancing at Sano.

"Be grateful it isn't you."

And the two continued their gambling.


End file.
